My goal is to use 2 hosts, each with a 4tb drive (in addition to other drives including a boot drive) and do HA with VMs and containers. I know 3 hosts is recommended and willing to take the chance (not sure how risky). This is for home stuff like a lab (Im an engineer) and also general home stuff like a DVR, NAS for media hosting, the usual. This is my first time working with ZFS.
Host 1 has a 4tb spin NAS drive and host 2 has a 4tb nvme.
I created a pool on each host independently with the same name (zpool_1) and then I went to the data center and created a ZFS drive and pointed it to that pool called "zfs_store".
I then created a directory from the DC and called it "ISO" and allowed ISO images since creating a ZFS (zfs_store) only allowed VM Drives and containers.
My question is, what is the difference between the two? Id rather just have one directory and include everything in it. Would be easier to manage that way in my mind. So what is the difference between a ZFS and a Directory pointed to a pool? Is there a good reason to create a directory for each type of storage? I've seen people do this and dont understand the underlying logic.
I do want to use HA on VMs and containers so that if host1 goes down I fail over to host2 with the spinning drive. Perhaps that is one of the differences? Can I replicate a vm drive to a directory pointed to a zfs pool?
EDIT: I answered part of my question by trying to do a HA failover from a VM where the drive is on a directory which is on a ZFS pool. the fail over fails and says cannot migrate to a drive without the "replication feature". So that answers that. Anything else "special" about a ZFS drive?
Here is the zfs snip from my storage.cfg from one node:
Secondary question:
When I create a directory there is an option to mark it as "shared"? Hover text: "If the underlying file system is already shared between two nodes". Im thinking this is not my case because Im in a shared pool but the drive isnt shared between the two. Would love to know how to do that but thinking not wise since im only 2.5gbe.
Ive tried reading the docs, and binging and copiloting but no clear answer.. Id appreciate some insight.
Host 1 has a 4tb spin NAS drive and host 2 has a 4tb nvme.
I created a pool on each host independently with the same name (zpool_1) and then I went to the data center and created a ZFS drive and pointed it to that pool called "zfs_store".
I then created a directory from the DC and called it "ISO" and allowed ISO images since creating a ZFS (zfs_store) only allowed VM Drives and containers.
My question is, what is the difference between the two? Id rather just have one directory and include everything in it. Would be easier to manage that way in my mind. So what is the difference between a ZFS and a Directory pointed to a pool? Is there a good reason to create a directory for each type of storage? I've seen people do this and dont understand the underlying logic.
I do want to use HA on VMs and containers so that if host1 goes down I fail over to host2 with the spinning drive. Perhaps that is one of the differences? Can I replicate a vm drive to a directory pointed to a zfs pool?
EDIT: I answered part of my question by trying to do a HA failover from a VM where the drive is on a directory which is on a ZFS pool. the fail over fails and says cannot migrate to a drive without the "replication feature". So that answers that. Anything else "special" about a ZFS drive?
Here is the zfs snip from my storage.cfg from one node:
zfspool: zfs_store pool zpool_1 content images,rootdir mountpoint /zpool_1 nodes host2,host1 sparse 1dir: ISO path /zpool_1/ISO content iso prune-backups keep-all=1 shared 0Secondary question:
When I create a directory there is an option to mark it as "shared"? Hover text: "If the underlying file system is already shared between two nodes". Im thinking this is not my case because Im in a shared pool but the drive isnt shared between the two. Would love to know how to do that but thinking not wise since im only 2.5gbe.
Ive tried reading the docs, and binging and copiloting but no clear answer.. Id appreciate some insight.
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