Passtrough multiple hdds in a multi drive case to multi vms

[drexloor]

Hello,

I already searched for it, but did not find a answer. Maybe because I didn't found the right words to search for.

My question: I have to buy a new case for some 3,5" hdds. Instead of buying several cases, I want to buy a multi drive case. With such a case is it possible to passtrough the single hdds to separate vms?
Eg.:
disk1 to vm1
disk2 to vm1
disk3 to vm2

I will not use any raid config.

 

[Dunuin]

I think that will depend on the case. Are you talking about external USB cases or external SATA or SAS?
I only read bad thing here of people using external USB multidisk cases.

 

[drexloor]

I will use a USB case. At the moment I haven’t decided on a case. So if somebody can share some experience I would welcome it.

So there are case which are able to present every HDD as a single device. But mostly they talking about normal desktop computers. Is Proxmox recognizing the same? Provided that the case is able to do so.

 

[leesteken]

But mostly they talking about normal desktop computers. Is Proxmox recognizing the same?

It depends whether the Linux kernel supports the device (and I assume that they mean Windows when talking about desktop). Does the device present the drives as "normal" USB storage or is there a specific driver needed (and does it support Linux)?
If you know of any Linux system that works fine with the device, then you will most likely be able to connect to the drives from Proxmox (which is Debian Linux under the hood). I guess you'll need to find reviews on the internet from people who use the device with Linux, which can also tell you something about performance and other issues.

 

[damo2929]

Hello,

I already searched for it, but did not find a answer. Maybe because I didn't found the right words to search for.

My question: I have to buy a new case for some 3,5" hdds. Instead of buying several cases, I want to buy a multi drive case. With such a case is it possible to passtrough the single hdds to separate vms?
Eg.:
disk1 to vm1
disk2 to vm1
disk3 to vm2

I will not use any raid config.

you would need to ensure that the enclosure isn't a raid enclosure or at least selectable to be jbod. you need to have the ability to control the USB power management features if it's a USB device. disabling power management ensures the device doesn't go offline when idle you might need to program it / update the firmware on a windows machine 1st using the actual chip vendors software.

you would then pass through the disk as /dev/ID's in raw disk mode.
I would use the dev ID's that use the device serial number so the devices can move between reboot or additional devices being added etc as you don't want to accidentally pass through a device that doesn't belong to the machine.