10 Proxmox Storage Best Practices

Proxmox is a powerful open source virtualization platform. It offers a great deal of flexibility and can be adapted to a wide variety of use cases.

However, as with any platform, there are certain best practices that should be followed in order to get the most out of it. In this article, we will discuss 10 Proxmox storage best practices that you should follow.

1. Use ZFS

ZFS is a next-generation filesystem that offers many features that are not found in traditional filesystems, such as data integrity checking, snapshots, and more.

Proxmox VE uses ZFS by default for all new installations, and it is highly recommended to use ZFS for all storage needs. Not only does ZFS offer better performance and stability, but it also helps prevent data loss due to corruption or hardware failures.

2. Use SSDs for the Proxmox Host OS

The Proxmox host OS is a Debian-based Linux distribution that is designed for running virtual machines. The host OS is responsible for managing the resources of the server, such as CPU, memory, and storage.

Using SSDs for the Proxmox host OS will improve the performance of the server because the host OS will have faster access to the storage devices. This is especially important when using Proxmox with high-end applications that require low latency, such as video editing or gaming servers.

Additionally, using SSDs for the Proxmox host OS will improve the reliability of the server because SSDs are less likely to fail than HDDs.

3. Use RAID 10 for Data Storage

RAID 10 provides excellent performance and redundancy for data storage. It offers high read and write speeds, as well as the ability to recover from a failed drive without losing any data.

Additionally, RAID 10 is more scalable than other RAID levels, so it can grow with your needs. And because it’s a mirroring and striping combination, you’ll get the best of both worlds in terms of performance and redundancy.

4. Use a Separate Disk for VM Images

When you store VM images on the same disk as your operating system, it’s easy to fill up your disk and run into problems. If your disk fills up, your proxmox server will be unable to write to the disk and will become unresponsive. This can lead to data loss and downtime for your VMs.

By storing VM images on a separate disk, you can avoid these problems. You can also use thin provisioning to save space on your disk. Thin provisioning allows you to allocate more disk space to a VM than is actually used, so you can grow your VM’s disk size as needed without taking up too much space on your proxmox server.

5. Use LVM for VM Images

LVM is a logical volume manager that provides a higher level of abstraction for storage devices. This means that you can create “logical” volumes that span across multiple physical storage devices. This is useful for a number of reasons, but the most important one is that it makes it much easier to resize your VM images.

If you’re not using LVM for your VM images, then you’ll need to manually resize the underlying disk images every time you want to change the size of your VM. This is a tedious and error-prone process. With LVM, you can simply use the “lvresize” command to resize your VM images.

LVM also has other benefits, such as snapshotting and thin provisioning. However, the main reason to use LVM is for the ease of resizing VM images.

6. Use Multiple Disks for VM Images

If you store your VM images on a single disk and that disk fails, you will lose all of your VM images. However, if you store your VM images on multiple disks and one disk fails, you will only lose the VM images on that particular disk.

Therefore, it’s important to use multiple disks for storing VM images to protect against data loss in the event of a disk failure.

7. Create a Backup Strategy

If you’re using Proxmox VE, you’re probably doing so because you want a high degree of control and flexibility over your virtualization environment. That’s great! But with that power comes responsibility.

Because you have such fine-grained control over your storage, it’s easy to make changes that can result in data loss. For example, you might accidentally delete a critical file or VM. Or you might make a change to your storage configuration that causes data corruption.

That’s why it’s important to have a robust backup strategy in place. That way, if something does go wrong, you can quickly restore your system to a working state.

There are many different ways to back up your Proxmox VE system. You can use Proxmox’s built-in snapshotting feature, for example. Or you can use third-party tools like Bacula or veeam.

Whichever method you choose, just make sure you have a plan in place!

8. Monitor Your System

As your system grows, so does the risk of data loss. To protect your data, you need to be proactive and monitor your system for any signs of trouble. By monitoring your system, you can identify problems early and take steps to prevent them from becoming serious.

There are many different ways to monitor your system, but one of the most important is to use a tool that will allow you to see all of your proxmox storage in one place. This way, you can quickly identify any issues and take action to fix them.

One of the best tools for this purpose is Proxmox Storage Explorer. This tool gives you a complete overview of your proxmox storage, including all of your virtual machines, containers, and images. With Storage Explorer, you can easily see which files are taking up the most space, identify which files are causing errors, and even find out which files have been deleted.

Storage Explorer is a free tool, and it’s available for download from the Proxmox website.

9. Consider Using Ceph or GlusterFS

When it comes to storage for proxmox, there are a few different options. One is to use local storage on each proxmox node, which is fine for small deployments but quickly becomes unmanageable as you add more nodes and storage.

Another option is to use a centralized storage solution like NFS or iSCSI, but these can be complex to setup and maintain.

Ceph and GlusterFS are two open source distributed storage solutions that are designed specifically for virtualization environments like proxmox. They are both easy to setup and maintain, and offer a number of benefits over traditional storage solutions.

If you’re looking for a robust and scalable storage solution for proxmox, Ceph or GlusterFS are definitely worth considering.

10. Keep Your System Up to Date

As new features are added and bugs are fixed, it’s important to keep your system up to date so you can take advantage of the latest improvements. Additionally, security vulnerabilities are often discovered and patched in new releases, so it’s important to stay up to date to protect your system from attack.

There are two ways to update Proxmox: using the web interface or the command line. Updating via the web interface is the recommended method, as it’s simpler and less error-prone. However, if you’re more comfortable using the command line, you can use that method as well.

To update Proxmox via the web interface, simply log in and navigate to the “System” tab. From there, click on the ” Updates” sub-tab, and then click the “Check for Updates” button. Proxmox will check for available updates and display a list of any that are found. Simply select the ones you wish to install and click the “Apply Selected Updates” button.

If no updates are found, you’ll see a message saying “Your system is up to date.”