Deploy MinIO: Single-Node Multi-Drive

Storage Requirements

The following requirements summarize the Storage section of MinIO’s hardware recommendations:

Use Local Storage

Direct-Attached Storage (DAS) has significant performance and consistency advantages over networked storage (NAS, SAN, NFS). MinIO strongly recommends flash storage (NVMe, SSD) for primary or “hot” data.

Use XFS-Formatting for Drives

MinIO strongly recommends provisioning XFS formatted drives for storage. MinIO uses XFS as part of internal testing and validation suites, providing additional confidence in performance and behavior at all scales.

MinIO does not test nor recommend any other filesystem, such as EXT4, BTRFS, or ZFS.

Use Consistent Type of Drive

MinIO does not distinguish drive types and does not benefit from mixed storage types. Each pool must use the same type (NVMe, SSD)

For example, deploy a pool consisting of only NVMe drives. If you deploy some drives as SSD or HDD, MinIO treats those drives identically to the NVMe drives. This can result in performance issues, as some drives have differing or worse read/write characteristics and cannot respond at the same rate as the NVMe drives.

Use Consistent Size of Drive

MinIO limits the size used per drive to the smallest drive in the deployment.

For example, deploy a pool consisting of the same number of NVMe drives with identical capacity of 7.68TiB. If you deploy one drive with 3.84TiB, MinIO treats all drives in the pool as having that smaller capacity.

Configure Sequential Drive Mounting

MinIO uses Go expansion notation {x...y} to denote a sequential series of drives when creating the new deployment, where all nodes in the deployment have an identical set of mounted drives. Configure drive mounting paths as a sequential series to best support this notation. For example, mount your drives using a pattern of /mnt/drive-n, where n starts at 1 and increments by 1 per drive.

Persist Drive Mounting and Mapping Across Reboots

Use /etc/fstab to ensure consistent drive-to-mount mapping across node reboots.

Non-Linux Operating Systems should use the equivalent drive mount management tool.

Memory Requirements

MinIO recommends a minimum of 32GiB of memory per host. See Memory for more guidance on memory allocation in MinIO.

1) Pull the Latest Stable Image of MinIO

Select the tab for either Podman or Docker to see instructions for pulling the MinIO container image. The instructions include examples for both quay.io and DockerHub:

2) Create the Environment Variable File

Create an environment variable file at /etc/default/minio. For Windows hosts, specify a Windows-style path similar to C:\minio\config. The MinIO Server container can use this file as the source of all environment variables.

The following example provides a starting environment file:

# MINIO_ROOT_USER and MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD sets the root account for the MinIO server.
# This user has unrestricted permissions to perform S3 and administrative API operations on any resource in the deployment.
# Omit to use the default values 'minioadmin:minioadmin'.
# MinIO recommends setting non-default values as a best practice, regardless of environment.

MINIO_ROOT_USER=myminioadmin
MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD=minio-secret-key-change-me

# MINIO_VOLUMES sets the storage volumes or paths to use for the MinIO server.
# The specified path uses MinIO expansion notation to denote a sequential series of drives between 1 and 4, inclusive.
# All drives or paths included in the expanded drive list must exist *and* be empty or freshly formatted for MinIO to start successfully.

MINIO_VOLUMES="/data-{1...4}"

# MINIO_OPTS sets any additional commandline options to pass to the MinIO server.
# For example, `--console-address :9001` sets the MinIO Console listen port
MINIO_OPTS="--console-address :9001"

# MINIO_SERVER_URL sets the hostname of the local machine for use with the MinIO Server.
# MinIO assumes your network control plane can correctly resolve this hostname to the local machine.

# Uncomment the following line and replace the value with the correct hostname for the local machine.

#MINIO_SERVER_URL="http://minio.example.net"

Include any other environment variables as required for your local deployment. ..

3) Create and Run the Container

Select the container management interface of your choice for the relevant command syntax.

podman run -dt                                  \
  -p 9000:9000 -p 9001:9001                     \
  -v PATH1:/data-1                              \
  -v PATH2:/data-2                              \
  -v PATH3:/data-3                              \
  -v PATH4:/data-4                              \
  -v /etc/default/minio:/etc/config.env         \
  -e "MINIO_CONFIG_ENV_FILE=/etc/config.env"    \
  --name "minio_local"                          \
  minio server --console-address ":9001"

docker run -dt                                  \
  -p 9000:9000 -p 9001:9001                     \
  -v PATH1:/data-1                              \
  -v PATH2:/data-2                              \
  -v PATH3:/data-3                              \
  -v PATH4:/data-4                              \
  -v /etc/default/minio:/etc/config.env         \
  -e "MINIO_CONFIG_ENV_FILE=/etc/config.env"    \
  --name "minio_local"                          \
  minio server --console-address ":9001"

The following table describes each line of the command and provides additional configuration instructions:

4) Validate the Container Status

podman logs minio

docker logs minio

Status:         1 Online, 0 Offline.
API: http://10.0.2.100:9000  http://127.0.0.1:9000
RootUser: myminioadmin
RootPass: minio-secret-key-change-me
Console: http://10.0.2.100:9001 http://127.0.0.1:9001
RootUser: myminioadmin
RootPass: minio-secret-key-change-me

Command-line: https://min.io/docs/minio/linux/reference/minio-mc.html
   $ mc alias set myminio http://10.0.2.100:9000 myminioadmin minio-secret-key-change-me

Documentation: https://min.io/docs/minio/container/index.html

5) Connect to the MinIO Service

MinIO Web Console

You can access the MinIO Web Console by entering http://localhost:9001 in your preferred browser. Any traffic to the MinIO Console port on the local host redirects to the container.

Log in with the MINIO_ROOT_USER and MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD configured in the environment file specified to the container.

You can use the MinIO Console for general administration tasks like Identity and Access Management, Metrics and Log Monitoring, or Server Configuration. Each MinIO server includes its own embedded MinIO Console.

If your local host firewall permits external access to the Console port, other hosts on the same network can access the Console using the IP or hostname for your local host.

MinIO CLI (mc)

You can access the MinIO deployment over a Terminal or Shell using the MinIO Client (mc). See MinIO Client Installation Quickstart for instructions on installing mc.

Create a new alias corresponding to the MinIO deployment. Use a hostname or IP address for your local machine along with the S3 API port 9000 to access the MinIO deployment. Any traffic to that port on the local host redirects to the container.

mc alias set http://localhost:9000 myminioadmin minio-secret-key-change-me

Replace myminioadmin and minio-secret-key-change-me with the MINIO_ROOT_USER and MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD values in the environment file specified to the container.

The command should return success if the container is running and accessible at the specified port.

You can then interact with the container using any mc command. If your local host firewall permits external access to the MinIO S3 API port, other hosts on the same network can access the MinIO deployment using the IP or hostname for your local host.