Feature Request: Bring back MergerFS / Storage Pooling without RAID striping (apt: command not found)

Insight & Feedback
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Hello ZimaOS Team,

I am using a Beelink ME Mini 16GB with 6x WD Red SN700 4TB NVMe SSDs. I installed ZimaOS on the drive in slot 4 as my system drive and upgraded to a ZimaOS+ subscription to unlock full storage management. My main goal is to use the remaining 5 NVMe drives for my Plex media library and regular file storage.

What I want to achieve: I want to pool these 5 remaining drives into a single logical volume (a single folder/mount point) so my applications and SMB network shares see it as one massive 20TB drive. However, I strictly do NOT want to use RAID 0. I want the files to remain physically intact on their individual drives. If one drive fails, I only want to lose the specific files on that failed drive, keeping the data on the other 4 drives completely safe.

The Problem: This exact setup was easily achievable in CasaOS using the “Merge Storage” (MergerFS) feature, but it seems to be completely removed from ZimaOS. Currently, the GUI only offers ZFS or traditional RAID arrays (like RAID 0 or RAID 5), which either risk total data loss or sacrifice capacity for parity.

Since the GUI lacks this pooling feature, I tried to set up mergerfs manually via the Web Terminal/SSH. However, because ZimaOS is an immutable OS, I immediately hit the sudo: apt: command not found error. I am completely locked out of installing standard Linux packages to solve this issue myself.

My Questions:

  1. Are there any plans to bring back the “Merge Storage” (MergerFS) feature to the ZimaOS GUI, especially for ZimaOS+ users?

  2. Is there an officially supported workaround to achieve this safe JBOD/pooling setup without breaking the immutable nature of the OS or risking configuration loss during future system updates?

Thank you in advance for your guidance.

2 Likes
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Yeah you’re spot on here, this is exactly what MergerFS was good at.

Right now in ZimaOS it’s simply not available anymore. The system is built around RAID/BTRFS/ZFS, and because it’s immutable, apt not working is expected.

So to answer you straight:

  • Merge Storage / MergerFS in the GUI: not there at the moment, and no official confirmation yet on it coming back
  • Safe workaround: only real option is running MergerFS in Docker (so it survives updates and keeps disks independent)

There’s currently no native way to do a single pooled drive without RAID/striping.

You’re definitely not alone on this one, a lot of Plex users want this exact setup back.

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There are other threads on the topic. I’d love to work with IceWhale again but its been radio silence from their side since the release of the ZimaCube.