pass pool or dataset to Windows VM?

[digity]

how do I pass a volume/pool, dataset or arbitrary folder to a Windows VM (so it essentially mounts like a internal HDD, external HDD or even a mapped network drive)?

 

[chris crude]

Same way you mount any other machine to your dataset. Rules are the same.

 

[digity]

Sorry, I should of gave more details. I want to pass a volume/pool, dataset or arbitrary folder to a Windows VM (so the guest OS can access it), but not as a block device (zvol, iSCSI) nor via SMB or NFS. Essentially similar to how docker passes volumes/folders from host to guest.

 

[danb35]

Essentially similar to how docker passes volumes/folders from host to guest.

It doesn't work that way with VMs, unless you've installed OS-specific guest tools that allow you to share folders between host and guest. I'm not aware of any such tools for bhyve, though no doubt there's plenty about bhyve I'm not aware of.

 

[chris crude]

I run win10vm as a plex server and ubuntu vm for pihole. I use regular SMB share for Windows so I can't help much except to say that I know you can bind/link folders in Unix similar to Linux but I have never used the command so I wouldn't be helpful with the exact command structure.

 

[digity]

It doesn't work that way with VMs, unless you've installed OS-specific guest tools that allow you to share folders between host and guest. I'm not aware of any such tools for bhyve, though no doubt there's plenty about bhyve I'm not aware of.

Ah, I see. I assume if I wanted the best performance then attaching a zvol to the VM would be my best option. I understand it would be block storage, but is there a way to access the files within that block/zvol from FreeNAS?

I'm essentially hoping to have file & folder access to all entities of storage on my FreeNAS server so it's easier for off-site backup/replication (and not having to transfer blobs, full drives, images, etc. over metered Internet).