Add independent Import/Export of Zvols

Feature Requests
1

Problem/Justification

So TrueNAS implemented export of Virtual Machines, in particular Zvols, which is a good feature, however I have found out that the Zvol needs to be part of a Virtual Machine to be exported and I am guessing that this is the case for importing (not found that yet).

This is an incredibly limited implementation. The mechanisms have all been made, but underused.

Can I ask that the Zvol Import/Export is independent of VMs, keep it in the VM wizard if needed etc.. by all means, but add the ability to import/export zvols independently.

Additional

  • Exporting a Zvol from a snapshot would be cool

Impact

  • Zvol import/export is very limited and not what I thought the feature would do, or at least behave.
  • The current scope of this feature is limiting and might not be used a lot in it’s current format.

User Story

  • Admins might want to upload and sort all of their Zvols before attaching them to Virtual Machines
  • Not all Zvols are used by VMs, for instance, iSCSI.
  • A user might be storing the Zvol as part of a backup and wants to download a copy to his pc for testing on VirtualBox.
  • Zvols can be stored so a user can swap them out on a virtual machine as needed.
2

+1 on this. having to wrap a zvol in a dummy vm just to move it is awkward.

i usually fall back to zfs send/recv over ssh for the same job, which works, but a gui import/export that doesnt require a vm object would save a lot of clicking. snapshot export as an option would be nice too.

3

Yep. The fact that IX Systems has not seen, or, acknowledged the need, tells me something.

You can figure how to do it yourself in the shell, but it should be a given feature.

That’s exactly why I prefer to use raw files and I have been happy with performance and reliability.

Reminds me. Not impressed by what TN 26 is looking like. Already slipped from Sep to a Dec release, as I expected given the Beta releases that are introducing features during Beta…

I will repeat that they can do so many non risky/intrusive small changes that can close the gap with Proxmox, but I will refrain my last opinion after they release TN 26.

Yes, it’s free, but we are the best free testing team, so treat us property by being fully transparent and accountable.