NFS / vSphere ESXi and Thin Disks

[oturn]

I have a vSphere / ESXi 6.0.0 server at home connected to an NFS export on my RT-AC87R. The external drive being used is a newer USB 3.0 Western Digital Passport. Everything is working great, which I must say is simply amazing. However, one frustration is that any data moved or copied to the NAS export is converted to thick provisioning disk format, even if thin is specified. This poses a challenge when moving any large, underutilized disks, as they expand and fill up the drive.

Typically, data copied to true NFS storage (an NFS formatted disk) is always thin. Since this isn't happening is this case, I'm assuming this has something to do with either the NFS implementation in Asuswrt-Merlin, or with the NTFS formatting on the external drive not supporting thin provisioning. Can anyone shed any light on this? Is there any possibility of thin disk support with this setup? Thanks!

 

[ColinTaylor]

Typically, data copied to true NFS storage (an NFS formatted disk) is always thin.

I guess you mean NTFS formatted disk? I don't know but I doubt that the NTFS driver on the router supports thin provisioning.

 

[oturn]

I guess you mean NTFS formatted disk? I don't know but I doubt that the NTFS driver on the router supports thin provisioning.

What partition type is used in a NAS providing NFS storage? Is it using an NFS partition? That was the example I was trying to give, in contrast to the NTFS formatted disk that I'm using.

 

[RMerlin]

What partition type is used in a NAS providing NFS storage? Is it using an NFS partition? That was the example I was trying to give, in contrast to the NTFS formatted disk that I'm using.

For better NFS support it's recommend to use a native filesystem, such as ext3 or ext4.

 

[ColinTaylor]

What partition type is used in a NAS providing NFS storage? Is it using an NFS partition? That was the example I was trying to give, in contrast to the NTFS formatted disk that I'm using.

There's no such thing as an NFS partition. NFS is a network protocol. The underlying partition type and file system would be ext2, ext3, NTFS, etc.

 

[john9527]

There used to be an option to enable NTFS sparse file support on the Samba setup page on the older codes with the Paragon drivers. I'm not sure if it still exists on the Tuxera drivers in the newer codes. AFAIK ext3/ext4 file systems have it enabled by default.

 

[oturn]

I used MiniTool Partition Wizard Free to delete the NTFS partition and create an ext4 partition on the drive. After plugging it into my RT-AC87R, this is the system log message:

Mar 23 12:50:04 kernel: usb 2-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 2
Mar 23 12:50:04 kernel: scsi0 : usb-storage 2-1:1.0
Mar 23 12:50:26 kernel: usb 2-1: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 2
Mar 23 12:50:36 kernel: usb 2-1: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 2
Mar 23 12:50:52 kernel: usb 2-1: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 2
Mar 23 12:50:53 kernel: usb 2-1: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 2
Mar 23 12:51:03 kernel: usb 2-1: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 2
Mar 23 12:51:03 kernel: scsi 0:0:0:0: Device offlined - not ready after error recovery

Next, I deleted the ext4 partition and created and ext3 partition, with the same result. The SCSI address did increment by 1.

Is this due to using MiniTool Partition Wizard on Windows? Do I need to use a Live CD, or is it possible to create the partition using the router?

 

[oturn]

Google is my friend.

https://www.asuswrt.eu/how-to-format-usb-drive/

Had to reboot to clear the errors. Formatting ext4 now.

 

[oturn]

And just like that, thin provisioning using ext4 is working! Thanks to everyone for your help.