Creating a zvol

[Chris Perry]

Hopefully, this is a simple question.

I have an existing 16TB volume that I use to store all of my media on. About 50% is used. I want to experiment with virtual machines. Reading through the manual, it says that I need to create a zvol for the VM. If I create a 128GiB zvol on the existing volume, will it affect the files already stored on that volume?

I am probably being paranoid, but since I have only used Freenas for file serving and a couple of plugins, a little paranoia seems about right.

Thanks in advance.

 

[joeschmuck]

If the GUI will let you create a zvol and you do not get a warning message then all will be good. Sorry to say it like that, I'm just trying to say that you will get a warning message before any deletion event and creating a zvol will not imact your current system.

 

[Chris Perry]

Thanks!

 

[kdragon75]

If your planing to work with ESXi and vCenter, use Sparse volumes. This will allow ESXi to UNMAP deleted files. This keep the used space only as big as needed.