storage, LVM thin pool

[150d]

Hi,

I have a hard time understanding storage in Proxmox. From what I understand, when adding a new disk to the system I have the following options:

a) create LVM thinpool:
This gives me a block level device that I can use for VM disks, but not for backups.

b) init to GPT, create partitions (outside Proxmox GUI), format to ext4, add to Proxmox as "directory":
This gives me a file level device that can store anything, but doesn't use thin provisioning.

Are these two paths mutually exclusive? Is there really no way I can have a file level device within a LVM thin pool? Or is this just not offered by the proxmox GUI?

Regards

 

[Dunuin]

You could also use a directory storage on top ZFS. Or you could manually create a thin-volume on top of a LVM-Thin pool, format that thin-volume with the filesystem of your choice (for example ext4), mount that filesystem and then create a directory storage pointing to that mountpoint.
In both cases you get a filesystem-level storage that supports thin-provisioning.

 

[150d]

I have ZFS for my Proxmox system drive (500 GB), which already fills my RAM (32 GB) to 95% (my VMs don't even use half that.) That's why I don't want to increase the burden on RAM by using ZFS for the new disk as well.

When creating the LVM Thin Pool, Proxmox apparently created a Thin Volume as well ("Add storage" was checked.) That's where I am now.

How should I format the ThinVol? Is there no way to do this via Proxmox GUI, does this have to be done with mkfs on the command line, then added as "Directory" to Proxmox?

 

[Dunuin]

How should I format the ThinVol? Is there no way to do this via Proxmox GUI, does this have to be done with mkfs on the command line, then added as "Directory" to Proxmox?

No, this has to be manually done in CLI using lvcreate, fdisk, mkfs, adding entry to fstab and setting "--is_mountpoint yes" with pvesm.

 

[150d]

Ok, will do. Thanks!

Regards