FN11 VM Memory Utilization

[Jrod696]

I have found a lot of conflicting answers to my questions via manuals and forums so I figured I would just ask directly and see what I got.

I currently have 8GB of ram in my system, if install a VM for lets say Debian and although it does not need it I give it 4gb of memory when setting up the VM. Will that 4gb be fully allocated and not usable by FN when the VM is running or will it only take what it needs up to the 4gb?

 

[cfcaballero]

I'm new around here, but I'd wager the answer you will receive most is that you need more RAM, as 8 GB is the absolute minimum recommended for FreeNAS. Good luck.

 

[rs225]

bhyve supports memory overcommit, which would spill to swap if necessary. The problem is that ZFS is a separate memory consumer in the kernel, and if there was actually a shortage of RAM, there are good odds that ZFS would shrink down very small before the VM or other things went to swap. There might be a tunable you can set to put a minimum on ZFS, but it wouldn't be smart to set that too high.

 

[Jrod696]

I'm new around here, but I'd wager the answer you will receive most is that you need more RAM, as 8 GB is the absolute minimum recommended for FreeNAS. Good luck.

My current setup has 32gb of ram in it but I was using 8gb and 4gb for the extremes to make my question easier to make sense. Thanks for the lookout though.