Apps on Boot Pool?

[eingemaischt]

Hi,

I installed a 500GB SSD as Boot pool. The pools itself on my NAS are HDD-based. Can I somehow use my ssd-based boot-pool as pool for the k8s-apps? This would improve performance and lower the power consumption....

 

[ClassicGOD]

This might be what you are looking for: https://www.truenas.com/community/t...-of-larger-ssds-for-boot-pool-and-data.81409/

 

[eingemaischt]

ok, this is what I tried yesterday - but then I f***** up because I accidentely didn't saw that a partprobe was only half successfull and I began to use parts of my usb stick twice....;-(=).

I thought there would be a simple trick, but then I'll reinstall freenas scale to a usb stick and do the "zfs-mirror-cloning trick".

 

[eingemaischt]

It worked well. I dd'd the usb-stick to my ssd on the command line after the install without rebooting (MicroServer Gen8, the SSD builds a single logical drive in the raid controller), rebootet without the usb-stick and added a partition to it with fdisk.

I then created a new pool in the GUI with native encryption on a usb-stick and added the partition on cli (zpool add [pool-name] [partition on ssd] && zpool remove [pool-name] [usb-stick]).

Worked like a charm

 

[HarryMuscle]

FYI, that process is overly complicated for scale. All you need to do is change literally one line in the install script before starting it and it will create a smaller partition on the boot drive. It's a simple single sed statement. I'll try to post the exact statement I used when I'm back at my computer.

Thanks,
Harry

 

[Louis2]

IMHO it is just ridiculous, that the boot disk can not be used for storage. So I opened a request to change that.

Utilize boot disk for Storage (big waste not to do!)

https://jira.ixsystems.com/browse/NAS-114382?filter=-2

So if you feel the same "make that know there"

 

[HarryMuscle]

FYI, that process is overly complicated for scale. All you need to do is change literally one line in the install script before starting it and it will create a smaller partition on the boot drive. It's a simple single sed statement. I'll try to post the exact statement I used when I'm back at my computer.

Thanks,
Harry

Finally getting back to this ... for those that asked about this, all you have to do is select the Shell option option in the installation GUI and run the following command:

Code:

sed -i 's/sgdisk -n3:0:0/sgdisk -n3:0:+16G/' /usr/sbin/truenas-install

where +16G is the size of the boot partition that you want. Then run:

Code:

truenas-install

to start the installation GUI again. That's all there's to it. This essentially tells the script to limit the size of the boot partition when it creates it so that it doesn't take up the whole drive. Next you will need to create the partition and pool that will hold your data on the same drive as the boot partition using the command line once the installation is done but that's a lot more standard practice and should be easily googled.

Thanks,
Harry

 

[E.B.]

This is very exciting and very timely - I have just joined the forum (I'm a novice user and new to truenas) on account of seeing this hack and I hope to implement it this weekend during my truenas scale build onto an 256GB SSD in the "fifth slot" of a Proliant microserver (gen8). The first test build went OK yesterday so at least I know the process well enough now due to useful posts at e.g.

HP Microserver Gen8 - Boot from SSD install on ODD bay | ADMFactory

In order for the HP Microserver Gen8 to boot from the SSD/HDD installed into ODD bay need some configuration to be done. Step by step instructions.

www.admfactory.com

Presumably you either reserved a mere 16GB for the boot partition because it is sufficient, or is it because it "matches" the install UI's choice of 16GB of swap space?

I will find out how to mount the SSD remainder during the weekend so that the various add-on apps can be installed there. As a way of learning I might see if it isfeasible for me to unpack the .iso and apply the sed edit there (a bit beynd me at the moment but it might be fun for me to investigate).

Thanks Harry for this interesting development (and Louis2 for submitting it as a feature request).

EB

 

[E.B.]

Some useful additions - I copied this youtube video and it worked (watch for about ten minutes starting from):

Setting Up a NEW (old) NAS - TrueNAS Scale Setup/Testing

A friend of mine had an old computer collecting dust (literally) so I took it and turned it into a little NAS using TrueNAS Scale.Try TrueNAS Scale: https://...

youtu.be

which is partly based on https://www.reddit.com/r/truenas/comments/lgf75w/scalehowto_split_ssd_during_installation/

 

[jgreco]

IMHO it is just ridiculous, that the boot disk can not be used for storage. So I opened a request to change that.

Utilize boot disk for Storage (big waste not to do!)

https://jira.ixsystems.com/browse/NAS-114382?filter=-2

So if you feel the same "make that know there"

You have to pick your boot device appropriately.

I have to waste an entire drive just for booting?

This resource was originally created by user: jgreco on the TrueNAS Community Forums Archive. Please DM this account or comment in this thread to claim it. With the advent of TrueNAS Scale, we seem to be getting a large number of people from the Linux community who are not quite grasping what...

www.truenas.com

Please note that partitioning of the boot device is not supported, and if you run into trouble as a result of doing so, please have the common decency to mention what you've done here in the forums when asking for help.

 

[vemsom]

Maybe separate, but related question.
If I can't partition and use the boot disk for apps, would I be better off using my one nvme drive for apps and use a SSD as my boot drive?

 

[fastzombies]

Would it work to use gparted to partition the ssds first then install TrueNAS?

 

[jgreco]

Would it work to use gparted to partition the ssds first then install TrueNAS?

Please do read the article I linked to previously.

 

[HarryMuscle]

Would it work to use gparted to partition the ssds first then install TrueNAS?

No, but the instructions to make it work are a few posts above.

Thanks,
Harry

 

[fastzombies]

The post linked above works. I have to get used to FreeBSD, never had a reason to use it before.