How to use an unassigned device drive for VMs


unRaide

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Hi, 

 

I'm in the process of setting up for my first unRAID build and i'm trying to setup an 500GB NVMe drive as an unassigned drive to use for my VMs.

 

I'm hoping to start with a Windows 10 gaming VM first and then later add macOS, Linux, and LibreElec VMs.

 

Been searching through the forums and haven't found any tutorial on how to accomplish this.

 

My questions then:

  1. How should i setup the unassigned drive? It's currently formatted in one 500GB xfs partition. I also have another 500GB NVMe cache drive.
  2. How do i change the VM Manager to use the unassigned drive?
    1. Do I need to move the domains and isos share to the unassigned drive or do those stay on the cache drive?
    2. Do i need to create a share on the unassiged drive?
  3. If i want to setup each VM with 50-75GB do i need to make partitions for all of those or does the VM Manager handle that?
  4. Should i change the mount name for this drive? It's currently the full drive model+serial number

 

Thanks!

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 12/20/2017 at 8:47 PM, unRaide said:

How should i setup the unassigned drive? It's currently formatted in one 500GB xfs partition. I also have another 500GB NVMe cache drive.

 

thats fine

 

 

On 12/20/2017 at 8:47 PM, unRaide said:

How do i change the VM Manager to use the unassigned drive?

 

make sure the nvme is mounted via unassigned devices plugin (and set to auto mount). when you specify the primary vdisk location, pick the nvme drive.

 

On 12/20/2017 at 8:47 PM, unRaide said:
  • Do I need to move the domains and isos share to the unassigned drive or do those stay on the cache drive?
  • Do i need to create a share on the unassiged drive?

no and no.

 

On 12/20/2017 at 8:47 PM, unRaide said:

If i want to setup each VM with 50-75GB do i need to make partitions for all of those or does the VM Manager handle that?

no need to make partitions. It will make a folder with the vm name and place the .img file into the drive of the space you told it to create.

 

On 12/20/2017 at 8:47 PM, unRaide said:

Should i change the mount name for this drive? It's currently the full drive model+serial number

 

doesn't matter if you're just clicking it to select. If you get into vm editing in the xml, it could be a pain later.

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  • 2 years later...
On 1/14/2018 at 5:47 PM, 1812 said:

make sure the nvme is mounted via unassigned devices plugin (and set to auto mount). when you specify the primary vdisk location, pick the nvme drive.

I know this is an old thread, but a Google search turned this up as my exact issue.  I'm thinking UnRAID doesn't support this any more - or I'm doing something wrong.  I bought a new NVMe drive to house my VMs (NOT to pass through to VMs - to store the VMs).  In Settings -> VM Manager, Default VM storage path now requires a path within /mnt/user.  My unassigned device (mounted) is in /mnt/disks/[diskid].  Even the help for this field mentions "Specify a user share that contains all your VM subdirectories with vdisks").  Just pasting in the /mnt/disks/... path doesn't work.

Can anyone confirm this functionality is no longer supported?  Thanks.

 

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  • 5 months later...

It's turning red for me as well. It's not changing to a state where "it's working now".

 

can change each VM individually, and they all work, but new VMs created still try to use /mnt/user/domains. The only way I was able to change it was by editing /boot/config/domains.cfg and rebooting (which is no quick task with a Dell R720 — it takes over five minutes to restart!)

 

Why is there this restriction? And why does it just turn the text red rather than displaying a helpful error message — it's really poor UX…

 

Just to make me feel like I've really got value for the $49 I've just paid to upgrade my licence, I've tried to rename a stopped VM. The button changes from "Update" to "Updating…" — and then stays like that (update: now over ten minutes since I clicked the button. TEN MINUTES TO RENAME A VM!)

 

You would think that changing the name of a VM would be pretty near instant, but apparently it takes over a minute. What exactly is unRAID trying to do that takes so long — and why isn't there any sort of feedback (a window with estimated time remaining would be useful. Doing the update in the background and letting me use the UI for other things would be even more useful, because navigating away from the page stops the rename!)

Edited by ElectricBadger
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  • 3 months later...

Hello Guys,
i'm Milan and still new in the unraid world, I just built my first server and i'm interested in an OSX VM (via Mac In a box plugin) and how to set it up on a separate NVMe. What @trurl said about a second cache pool sounds great, so i downloaded the beta for testing purposes, what's the best way to proceed? I have already set up a second cache pool called "vm" with a 256GB NVMe.

 

So which of the shares should be set to my "vm" pool instead of the normal cache drive? Just "domains" and "isos", is that right?
I am looking forward to your answers :)

InkedScreenshot 2020-11-14 024546_LI.jpg

Edited by MiWu
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