Windows 8 on iSCSI with LIO target: thin provisioning

Posted by LubosD on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by LubosD
Published on 2014-06-01T20:04:11Z Indexed on 2014/06/01 21:31 UTC
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Filed under:

linux

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iscsi

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windows-8.1

I have installed Windows 8.1 on an iSCSI target. This target is provided by Linux LIO and is backed by a sparse file.

One of the reasons I created such an installation was thin provisioning. In other words, when I free disk space on Windows, LIO should punch holes into the file, thus free storage space on the Linux server as well.

I have checked my kernel's sources and the SCSI UNMAP command is really supported for file-backed targets. On the other hand, deleting files on Windows doesn't lower the amount of space taken by the backing file on Linux (checked with du). Actually, the backing file sometimes grows even more.

Some sources on Google say Win8 should support UNMAP/DISCARD on iSCSI, but even in Wireshark I only see ordinary read and write commands when files are being deleted. Any way to fix or troubleshoot it?

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