Proper way of storage provisioning

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fabiolanza

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May 15, 2020
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Hi,

it's the first time that I am using Proxmox. I have 4x 4TB HDDs that belong to a RAIDZ-1 ZFS (no other disks). I created a Windows Server VM to be used as a file-server. In order to have my data in a different disk than the OS one, I am trying to understand what is the most appropriate way to create a logical volume for data, that can be attached to this VM or any other Windows VM in the future.

My only requirement is that if my VM gets trashed in the future, I should be able to spin up a new VM and reattach this data drive back to it, without losing any data.

I tried to create an LVM (thinking it could be a good solution), but it asks for a volume group, should I create one? Is it possible to do it from the GUI?


Thanks!

Fabio
 
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Hi,

If you use ZFS, a zvol is created for each VM vdisk.
These are independent block devices.
Suppose you have a root (OS disk) and a data disk.
And the VM won't start due to problems with the root partition.
You can use the data diskette (zvol) in any other VM or mount it on the host.
There are restrictions due to the naming scheme used by Proxmox VE.
All vdisk have a name like this "vm- <vmid> -disk- <DiskNo>".
To use it in another VM, you should rename this disk and then use it.
 
wolfgang said:
Hi,

If you use ZFS, a zvol is created for each VM vdisk.
These are independent block devices.
Suppose you have a root (OS disk) and a data disk.
And the VM won't start due to problems with the root partition.
You can use the data diskette (zvol) in any other VM or mount it on the host.
There are restrictions due to the naming scheme used by Proxmox VE.
All vdisk have a name like this "vm- <vmid> -disk- <DiskNo>".
To use it in another VM, you should rename this disk and then use it.
Click to expand...

Hi @wolfgang thanks for replying, interesting to know this information. I will test later today. Therefore, my understanding is that if I rename the vdisk so that it matches with the name of a different VM, it would then show-up in this new VM. In this case, I have two questions:
  1. What happens if I delete the previous VM, will it also destroy the vdisk that got moved to the new VM?
  2. In addition, do the vdisk also needs to be associated with a VM at any given time or there would be a naming convention that would allow a vdisk to be parked in the content page without being associated with any VM?

Thanks
 
fabiolanza said:
What happens if I delete the previous VM, will it also destroy the vdisk that got moved to the new VM?
Click to expand...
The disk with the matching naming schema will be erased.

fabiolanza said:
In addition, do the vdisk also needs to be associated with a VM at any given time or there would be a naming convention that would allow a vdisk to be parked in the content page without being associated with any VM?
Click to expand...
You can create independent vdisks but this can't be done on the GUI.

Maybe VM with an SMB share solves your problem.
OMV is a good one with a nice working GUI.
https://www.openmediavault.org/
 
wolfgang said:
The disk with the matching naming schema will be erased.


You can create independent vdisks but this can't be done on the GUI.

Maybe VM with an SMB share solves your problem.
OMV is a good one with a nice working GUI.
https://www.openmediavault.org/
Click to expand...

Thanks again for sharing this information, very appreciated as I am still learning. I will definitely take a look at OMV. Regarding the creation of independent vdisk, is there any tutorial that I could follow?

Thanks,

Fabio
 
Thre are many HowTo reladed Proxmox VE with OMV online. Just google, they easy to find.
 
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