Best method to add 2nd 4 TB nvme for additional vms

[Ablatem]

I want to add additional storage to my Pool Devices with a nvme 4 TB drive. I don't know the best way to do this.

My current vm setup is a 1 TB nvme called vms_nvme in Pool Devices. It has several vm's and I need to add more space.
Should I format the new 4TB nvme as xfs and add it to the Pool and call it something like vms2_nvme and then just start specifying it when I setup any new vm?

Or should I somehow swap out the 1 TB nvme with the 4TB and restore the vms I need from the 1 TB drive?

I have both of these nvme's installed and I can see both in Pool Devices. I also have a 500 GB nvme (cache_nvme) and a 1 TB cache_ssd drive.
 

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[JonathanM]

XFS drives can only be single member pools. This is not a bad thing in my opinion, considering the next best option for differing drive size pool use is single profile BTRFS pool, which gives you the sum of the member sizes at the expense of losing everything on both drives if one fails.

 

31 minutes ago, Ablatem said:

Should I format the new 4TB nvme as xfs and add it to the Pool and call it something like vms2_nvme and then just start specifying it when I setup any new vm?

 

You can't add the 4TB to the 1TB existing pool as XFS.

 

What you would do is set up another pool, not add it, and call it vms2_nvme.

 

I'm not sure if that's what you were trying to say, but if you have 4 total SSD I would recommend each having their own named pool, not combining them. The only time I personally would combine multiple drives in a single pool is if they were identical and I was using the mirror (RAID1) function of ZFS or BTRFS. I don't particularly like BTRFS though.

[Ablatem]

Thanks for your response. I should have provided a screen capture so you could see my current setup and what I was trying to say.

I understand about the single member pools (I think) and maybe this is what I have in my current setup.

And if I understand you correctly, I can add the 4 TB nvme to it's own pool and call it vms2_nvme. That sounds like what I should do. 
One more question and this is probably a dumb question - I see the preclear icon on my new nvme drive - do you preclear nvme drives?

Thanks again for your assistance.

[JonathanM]

1 minute ago, Ablatem said:

I can add the 4 TB nvme to it's own pool and call it vms2_nvme. That sounds like what I should do. 

Yep, The only downside is the need to manually manage the space, but it's not that difficult to remember to assign the proper pool to the task at hand.

3 minutes ago, Ablatem said:

do you preclear nvme drives?

Not recommended. Preclear is really only useful to stress test regular hard drives.

[Ablatem]

Thanks again for this quick response.

I need to check on the process for adding this new nvme to Pool Devices.

[Ablatem]

JonathanM,

 

Thanks for your help. I have been able to add the new 4 TB nvme to a new pool so I am good to go.

My issue is resolved.