How storage is allocated?

1 reply
akak01000101
68 posts

Is there a document on storage allocation and limits? All I could find regarding "how storage is allocated" was from the document LXC vs KVM Antlets. For my various antlets, I see storage is 20GB, 40GB, 100GB, or infinite (on the LXCs). Most of my antlets only need 2GB-10GB.

  • When creating an antlet there is no place to define the storage amount or is there?
  • Are those store "limits"? Are they pre-allocated or does it allocate as needed with shared storage up to that amount?
  • How are those storage amounts determined?
  • Is there a way through Antman or in EdgeLinux to determine how much an Antlet is actually using?
daniel.luckStaff
551 posts

Hi @akak01000101

You can look at Templates section in antMan to view how much space is being used or allocated.

In the column on the left, those are templates that you can download.  The sizes listed there are download sizes and they files are compressed in tar.gz format.

In the column on the right, those are the templates that already downloaded.  The sizes listed there are Used on Disk and Effective Size.

For LXC's, those antlets share the same file system as edgeLinux which is why the storage limit is infinite.  File sizes of LXC can vary depending on what's installed.  You can see how much storage is being used in the LXC by typing this command:

df -h

For KVM's, those antlets are stored in qcow2 file and file sizes can vary depending on what's installed.  Windows antlets tend to be larger than Linux ones.  You can use the same command above to see what's being used for Linux.  In Windows, you can right-click on Hard Drive and go to Properties to see the disk usage.

The qcow2 file are considered "sparse" or using "thin provisioning".  For example, most KVM's have 100GB allocated but the space being taken up is only what's being used.  For example, Win11StdGui has the qcow2 file with 100GB allocated but only 13.9GB being used when you create an antlet from the template.

Log in to reply. New here? It takes a minute.