Adding Unassigned Devices HDD's and SSD to a VM - /dev/disk/by-id not working

[DrBobke]

Hi all, I am watching Spaceinvader One on how to setup unassigned HDDs in a VM. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaB9HhpbDAI

 

I am building a VM for edting photos and for the purpose of putting that into a cloud backup (and Lightroom work), I want to have HDD's and an SSD.

 

So Option 1 is to assign by sdX name, but when rebooting the unRAID, it might change, so I want to go for the option of /dev/disk.by-id/xxxxx This is not working for me. I have formatted the drives and mounted them too, option 1 I can do, but option 2 the VMS menu is just stuck on 'updating'. I searched the forum, but didn't find it there either.

Second question - is there a different way to add an SSD NVMe drive as a cache drive, only for that VM?

 

When I mounted the Drives (2 HDD's of 12 Tb each and 1 NVMe 2Tb), I should be able to connect to them from each computer via a network share, right? I cannot get that to work either.

I see others on youtube videos having a "share" option in the main menu, which I do not have.

 

I have the unassigned devices and the plus running and Enabled the Destructive Mode.

 

Any ideas most welcome!

Also found this one :

 but seems to not be an update that works?

[itimpi]

If you are trying to pass through the NVME drive in the way you seem to want then it must NOT be mounted at the Unraid level.   Also the formatting will normally happen inside the VM.

[DrBobke]

Okay, I will unmount the NVMe, but that should be possible for the HDD's (mounting them), right?

What about reaching them as network share and assigning the drives with the /dev/disk/by-id/ ?

[DrBobke]

Okay, so I have finally been able to access the nvme drive via the network and copied over the vdisk image, but now I am stuck with pointing the Primary vdisk location to the nvme drive - I have now input: /dev/nvme0n1/vdisk1.img, which is freezing up. When just inputting /dev/nvme0n1, it gives me an error... Any thoughts on what I can do?

[itimpi]

Earlier you said you wanted to pass the entire nvme drive through, but the path ends in vdisk1.img which suggests you are trying to use a vdisk image file on the nvme   Which is it?

[DrBobke]

Hi itimpi,

I have an nvme drive that I want to use to run my VM and use as a cache drive for editing in Lightroom and Photoshop.  As I already have a VM set up, someone suggested (on FB), to transfer the vdisk1.img to the nvme drive, which I have done now. However, if it is easier to set up a new VM, I am okay with that, as reinstalling the VM from scratch, will probably be a lot faster than keep trying different options for it to work properly.

 

So maybe a "bare metal" setup would be better suited for my needs?

 

What would you suggest and how to set this up? I don't think I found a Spaceinvader One video on that?

 

My setup is this : 

1*14TB  Parity drive

2*12 TB HDD for the array

1*2TB 2'5 SSD

Flash (USB) drive with unRAID

 

In my unassigned devices, I have :

nmve0n1 - 2TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus

sdc - 12 TB HDD which I want to use for HDD Work photo files

sdg - 12 TB HDD which I want to use for HDD Private photo files

 

What I want to setup, is a VM that is as fast as it can be, and not using network shares on the unRAID server, as 1. Lightroom is not a fan of that and 2. I prefer to keep using my Backblaze cloud service, to ensure backup - or can this be done by using symlinks? Or is that not 'powerful enough' to fool Backblaze?

IF there is a way to have the unRAID make copies of this too, that is a bonus and nice to have.

 

The nvme would be used as cache drive in the VM for Lightroom, Photoshop and possibly Premiere Pro and would be nice to be able to run WIN10 on that too, as it will likely be faster and more responsive than running it off the array?

Edited February 2, 2021 by DrBobke
Added my setup details and intended use

[DrBobke]

Anyone?

I have watched another movie : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrWOEYldTdk  on passing through an nvme drive, but it is stated that the option is obsolete for some reason (I read evertyhing, but I am not sure where I would have to put certain things).  Seems That others are having the same issues, though the thread is not answerred anymore..

 

I have also followed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsuRFeyqbt4

and made a new VM, it seems it does work to pass through and I am a happy camper, being able to boot from the NVMe drive.  However, I did notice that I couldn't see my HDD's anymore, which house my Photo files.  So I shut it down, and added the HDD's into the mix (still using the /dev/sdc, and /dev/sdg, as nobody seems to be able to explain why the /by-id/ doesn't work for me... I have also tried "manual Vdisk Location" as /mnt/disks/HDD_Photos_Work/ (I changed the name of the HDD, so it's easier to see which is which)., but then the VMS edit tab keeps on "updating...", So I need to go out and change the settings again..

When I do this, I can see in VNC Remote that it is trying to boot from the HDD, not the Nvme anymore :

 

When I try to edit the VM, I see that Primary vdisk location is no longer set to "none", but it set to one of the HDD's. As the NVMe is passed through, I can't see it anywhere.

What I did forget to mention before - is that I had to make the VM using SeaBios, as I was getting errors when using OVMF.  I also tried doing this on the new VM I was making, but that didn't work and I was taken to a command shell.

PLEASE can someone check this, as I have been looking around, reading everything that seemed relevant for days now, and no closer to solving my issue... 

 

Edited February 3, 2021 by DrBobke

[DrBobke]

For full transparency - These are my VM settings...

Ideally, I want to pass through the nvme drive and use that as the drive that holds WIN, all programs and cache. But when changing primary vDisk Location to 'none' it is taking the HDD's as bootdrive - which doesn't work.  In the other VM, passing through the nvme drive, it works great, but then I can't see the HDD's anymore.

I would also like to change 2nd and 3rd vdisk locations to have them /by-id/, so I don't loose them..

 

I wanted unraid for this feature and combine it with the NAS capabilities, but it seems I can't get it to work.. 😞 

 

 

 

 

And yes, I am using the Unassigned devices plugin (funny that I have copied over about 3 TB of files on the HDD_Photos_Work and it says 473MB used and it is empty when checking in my VM, HDD_Photos_Private says 3.08TB here too, in the VM, I can see the same, but I cannot see the files - just "Backup") I copied the files over from my desktop HDD's to the unRAID UD HDD's via a network share I setup :

Edited February 3, 2021 by DrBobke
more information

[Puregreen59]

On 2/3/2021 at 12:48 PM, DrBobke said:

Anyone?

I have watched another movie : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrWOEYldTdk  on passing through an nvme drive, but it is stated that the option is obsolete for some reason (I read evertyhing, but I am not sure where I would have to put certain things).  Seems That others are having the same issues, though the thread is not answerred anymore..

 

I have also followed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsuRFeyqbt4

and made a new VM, it seems it does work to pass through and I am a happy camper, being able to boot from the NVMe drive.  However, I did notice that I couldn't see my HDD's anymore, which house my Photo files.  So I shut it down, and added the HDD's into the mix (still using the /dev/sdc, and /dev/sdg, as nobody seems to be able to explain why the /by-id/ doesn't work for me... I have also tried "manual Vdisk Location" as /mnt/disks/HDD_Photos_Work/ (I changed the name of the HDD, so it's easier to see which is which)., but then the VMS edit tab keeps on "updating...", So I need to go out and change the settings again..

When I do this, I can see in VNC Remote that it is trying to boot from the HDD, not the Nvme anymore :

 

When I try to edit the VM, I see that Primary vdisk location is no longer set to "none", but it set to one of the HDD's. As the NVMe is passed through, I can't see it anywhere.

What I did forget to mention before - is that I had to make the VM using SeaBios, as I was getting errors when using OVMF.  I also tried doing this on the new VM I was making, but that didn't work and I was taken to a command shell.

PLEASE can someone check this, as I have been looking around, reading everything that seemed relevant for days now, and no closer to solving my issue... 

 

 

 

Silly Question but you are remembering to put ata-YOURDRIVEID

 

because I've just made the same mistake, I only realised my mistake when i tried to navigate there using cd /dev/disk/by-id/ in terminal and making sure it was there, to only remember that all the drives have ata- before the id's

 

regards.