Datasets on my root ZFS mirror - allocating space for Proxmox install and data

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el_pedr0

Member
Sep 6, 2016
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Hi - I'm about to reinstall Proxmox afresh on my 2 disk SSD ZFS mirror (750GB each). Please could you sanity check that I'm not going to nuke my data.

When I first set everything up, I think I simply installed Proxmox onto the SDD Raid 1 drives. Which presumably created the rpool zpool, and the subvolumes /rpool/ROOT for the filesystem and rpool/data for the VM images. All that only takes up about 65GB. So I created a handful of other datasets on the rpool zpool for some users' data.

My current Proxmox is 4.3 so I'm going to do a fresh install of Proxmox 5.2 from USB by following the installer wizard. Will it retain the data in datasets that I created on rpool?
 

MiniKnight

Well-Known Member
Mar 30, 2012
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Why not just upgrade? It is much safer to upgrade then fresh install if you've got data on the drives.
 

el_pedr0

Member
Sep 6, 2016
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I'm sure I read somewhere that because 5.x is such a major upgrade from 4.x, that it is safer to do a fresh install. But for the life of me I can't find where I read that now.

As I'm running this as a home server, I'm happier to invest more time in the set up (and can server downtime while I'm doing that), than having to deal with chasing down issues that might have been introduced because of an upgrade.
 

dkong

New Member
Apr 3, 2018
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I'm doing tests with Proxmox to see if it suits my needs right now (moving from VMware if Proxmox is good enough). I have done some playing around with ZFS zpools and datasets and I wouldn't dare to trust the installer with my data. Maybe your easiest way to upgrade is to get a separate boot device, that way you won't have this problem ever again.
 

el_pedr0

Member
Sep 6, 2016
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You're right. In fact I designed the system to have a separate boot device(s), an the bulk of my data is on a pool of spinning disks. It's just that the helpful folk on this forum flagged a great deal on the 750GB drives that I couldn't resist getting them for my boot devices. Now I find it difficult to resist using that extra space for stuff. Must be more disciplined. In any case, I'll create a second copy of the data before upgrading or reinstalling. Thanks for the sanity check folks
 

el_pedr0

Member
Sep 6, 2016
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Just to conclude - The installer makes it clear that it will nuke all data on the disk: "The Proxmox Installer automatically partitions your hard disk. It installs all required packages and finally makes the system bootable from hard disk. All existing partitions and data will be lost"