Hi, I'm familiar and very happy with BTRFS on my Linux desktop. I'm totally new to Proxmox, however. I have the newest 7.3 version installed on a Thinkpad T520 with an SSD and a HDD.
I want to put VMs on the SSD, and use the HDD for NAS-style storage. I installed Fedora Server 37 successfully as a VM, and it only sees the 16Gb storage I gave it from the SSD -- that's fine.
I thought I could just follow the instructions from the Proxmox wiki entry on BTRFS to create a new BTRFS filesystem on the HDD at /dev/sda. That worked, including mounting it and adding it via the CLI as storage. I see the full 500Gb drive as storage.
But what I can't get my mind around is how to give some, or all, of that storage space to Fedora Server, or to some other server VM I might install.
When I click Server->Hardware->Add Hard Disk, I'm prompted for how much to give. Ok, I try 32Gb of my 500Gb drive. Seems ok.
Now, when I go to Fedora Server (well, it's the Cockpit web admin portal), it sees /dev/sdb, but calls it unrecognized space, and prompts me to format it (ironically not suggesting BTRFS as a possible format, only XFS, EXT4, NTFS -- so I assume I'd have to create a BTRFS filesystem on the command line).
But if I want to use BTRFS features like snapshots and checksums and maybe RAID1 down the line , does that mean I have to install a BTRFS filesystem inside a VM that is accessing storage on a BTRFS filesystem? That sounds ... weird? To have to create one filesystem inside another.
I may be missing something very basic about Proxmox and virtualizaiton, I realize.
BTW I do realize that I could/should create a NAS using a specialized VM. Most examples I see are TrueNAS but I'd want to use BTRFS, so I guess I could do Rockstor. But I thought it would make everything more complicated to add a 2nd VM without understanding how the first one works.
Update: I see the error I made, which was in not passing the drives to a VM as a whole. Once I did so using this guide I was able to add the disks to a NAS VM without any issue. Presumably then I will be able to create network shares.
I want to put VMs on the SSD, and use the HDD for NAS-style storage. I installed Fedora Server 37 successfully as a VM, and it only sees the 16Gb storage I gave it from the SSD -- that's fine.
I thought I could just follow the instructions from the Proxmox wiki entry on BTRFS to create a new BTRFS filesystem on the HDD at /dev/sda. That worked, including mounting it and adding it via the CLI as storage. I see the full 500Gb drive as storage.
But what I can't get my mind around is how to give some, or all, of that storage space to Fedora Server, or to some other server VM I might install.
When I click Server->Hardware->Add Hard Disk, I'm prompted for how much to give. Ok, I try 32Gb of my 500Gb drive. Seems ok.
Now, when I go to Fedora Server (well, it's the Cockpit web admin portal), it sees /dev/sdb, but calls it unrecognized space, and prompts me to format it (ironically not suggesting BTRFS as a possible format, only XFS, EXT4, NTFS -- so I assume I'd have to create a BTRFS filesystem on the command line).
But if I want to use BTRFS features like snapshots and checksums and maybe RAID1 down the line , does that mean I have to install a BTRFS filesystem inside a VM that is accessing storage on a BTRFS filesystem? That sounds ... weird? To have to create one filesystem inside another.
I may be missing something very basic about Proxmox and virtualizaiton, I realize.
BTW I do realize that I could/should create a NAS using a specialized VM. Most examples I see are TrueNAS but I'd want to use BTRFS, so I guess I could do Rockstor. But I thought it would make everything more complicated to add a 2nd VM without understanding how the first one works.
Update: I see the error I made, which was in not passing the drives to a VM as a whole. Once I did so using this guide I was able to add the disks to a NAS VM without any issue. Presumably then I will be able to create network shares.
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