Allow App Installation on Non-RAID (Single-Disk) Volumes in TOS 7 – Currently Only RAID Volumes Are Selectable

[rigveda]

Request / Issue:
I would like to install applications (Docker containers, etc.) on the 1 TB SSD for better performance, but the TOS 7 App Center only allows installation on the two RAID-based volumes created from the HDD pool. The SSD volume (single-disk, non-RAID) does not appear as a selectable installation location, even though it is properly formatted as ext4 and visible in the Volumes list.
Additional Information:

I have manually edited /etc/volume/volume.conf to register the SSD as a valid volume, but it still does not appear in the App Center's volume selection dropdown.
I do not need high availability or redundancy on this SSD; I am fine with rebuilding it manually if the disk fails.

Desired Feature:
Please enable the ability to select any valid volume (including single-disk/non-RAID volumes) for application installation in TOS 7, or provide an official workaround to register a single-disk SSD volume so that it can be used as an app installation target.
This would greatly improve performance for users who want to run apps from an SSD while keeping data on HDD pools.
Thank you for your consideration!

Further details
I have installed TOS 7 beta: 7.0.0299
BIOS: MAPL0304V17
Model: F5-221


I have 5 Disks installed: 4x Western Digital HDD (4 TB), and 1x SSD Blue 1TB.
I have created 1 storage Pool for the 4x WD HDDs, and created 2 Volumes in that Pool (fully utilised). The System disk is installed on the 1TB SSD.

When I look at the disk, A very small portion is used by the OS/ System, while almost 840 GB is free. I created an ext4 filesystem on that to hopefully be used.
I don’t need high availability on that disk, and if I loose the disk, I can simply rebuild it if required. However, I do want my apps to be installed on this SSD to have high performance.


I modified the /etc/volume/volume.conf to add the following as well:


However in volumes it shows this:


I suspect it is because it is not a true RAID volume.
How do I get my Apps that I install to select Volume 3 as I have created it?


The picture above only shows these 2 valid volumes.

Thanks!

[Gremlin]

Since Volume 3 shows as "corrupted", it is a matter of 'self-preservation' I suspect. The system won't write to corrupted volume and won't allow it to be selected as destination. Fix the the disk/pool/volume issue. I notice you are using a "Blue" drive (desktop?) which may not be suitable.

[TMzethar]

From the information you provided, it appears you did not use the system-specified formatting process but instead formatted the entire data partition as ext4 directly.
Normally, volumes used for TOS should be based on mdadm and LVM structures.
Please create this SSD as a new storage pool and volume on the control panel page.

[rigveda]

From the information you provided, it appears you did not use the system-specified formatting process but instead formatted the entire data partition as ext4 directly.
Normally, volumes used for TOS should be based on mdadm and LVM structures.
Please create this SSD as a new storage pool and volume on the control panel page.

Thanks TMezthar, how do I go about doing that? Is there a tool in TOS to enable me to reformat that drive and repartition it appropriately, or should I use CLI commands, or restart the entire installation process? The installation did not give me an option to target a specific partition of the SSD drive to install the System Disk on? Is there a step I should perform POST installation to enable it as a different targettable partition?

[rigveda]

Since Volume 3 shows as "corrupted", it is a matter of 'self-preservation' I suspect. The system won't write to corrupted volume and won't allow it to be selected as destination. Fix the the disk/pool/volume issue. I notice you are using a "Blue" drive (desktop?) which may not be suitable.

Its not actually corrupted, its just manually added into the volumes.conf file. I am looking for a way to address one of the partitions on the SSD drive, which is currently formatted as ext4. It looks like I need to actually format it as a "mdadm and LVM structures" to allow TOS to be able to select it as a viable Volume to install against.

[rigveda]

From the information you provided, it appears you did not use the system-specified formatting process but instead formatted the entire data partition as ext4 directly.
Normally, volumes used for TOS should be based on mdadm and LVM structures.
Please create this SSD as a new storage pool and volume on the control panel page.

It seems the System Disk targets the ENTIRE disk and not a specific partition on the disk

[CursaYang]

You can delete the volume currently mounted by this SSD, then format the hard disk on the Disk page, and recreate the storage pool and volume. This way, you can install the application on this volume.

[rigveda]

Thanks I think I managed to get it to work, but it was not very straight forward, might be a good idea, to provide some easier means to surface to the user options to use the some of the partitions on the System Disk as a Volume for usage by the NAS. I.e.: To make it easier for the user to select the System Disk and then afterwards provide the user the option to allocate the remaining unused/ unallocated storage on the System Disk to repartition this for a seperate storage Pool (single disk), and associated Volume.

[TMroy]

Perhaps because you have some Linux knowledge and can manage storage devices via the terminal command line, you've actually overcomplicated things. You don't need to worry about how many partitions are on the SSD, as some of them are system reserved partitions that you should not touch. It's quite straightforward: you simply need to follow the prompts on the TOS Storage Manager page to add a new storage pool and volume. The system will then present the available options for you to select. Of course, it takes a little time to get familiar with a system, but you'll find the operations quite straightforward once you've used it once.