Thoughts on using root rpool for isos, and setting up ideal storage solutions.

mike the newb

Member
Aug 24, 2025
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I started out my PM adventure installing on 500g SSDs because that's the smallest I had. It seems that PM has no need for that much space, and I'm wondering what people usually do in this kind of scenario, and what thoughts people may have on using some of that space for isos.

Also curious how you may set up your storage for vms and random data.

I have a bunch of 1tb disks and 16 2.5" hot swap drive bays. They're all sata on sas controllers (not using hardware raid due to using zfs) and I was thinking about creating mirrored pairs, but setting up storage in an ideal way is something I haven't studied yet.

I appreciate any thoughts/pointers
 
You don't need an SSD for PVE. I usually have a layout like this.

My problem was that my smallest spinning disk is 1tb. The 500g 860 EVOs would have just been sitting around if I didn't use them, and I didn't think using a 1tb drive for PVE made sense. I have 8 more of those 860s I'm not sure what to do with.

I don't completely understand the layout you posted. Can you elaborate a little?