IT 3300 : Virtualization

Proxmox — Storage

Storage options

• Local — fast, but tied to one node (no HA)
• Shared — NFS / iSCSI: many nodes see the same storage
• Hyperconverged — Ceph: storage spread across the cluster nodes

What storage holds

• VM disk images and LXC container volumes
• ISO images and container templates
• Backups
• Different content types can live on different storages

TrueNAS (was FreeNAS)

• FreeNAS is now TrueNAS (SCALE = Linux-based)
• Build a NAS, create a dataset, export it over NFS
• Mount it in Proxmox as shared storage for disks/backups/ISOs

Connecting NFS to Proxmox

• On TrueNAS: create dataset, configure NFS share, set permissions
• In Proxmox: Datacenter -> Storage -> Add -> NFS
• Point it at the TrueNAS IP and export path
• Now every node in the cluster can use it

Why shared storage matters

• Live migration and HA need the disk reachable from any node
• Local disk can't move with the VM; shared storage can
• This is the storage-follows-compute idea from the concepts unit

Ceph — the modern HA choice

• Distributed, self-healing storage built into Proxmox
• No separate storage box; disks across nodes form one pool
• Replicated for redundancy; survives a node failure
• Enables HA + live migration without an external SAN/NAS

Ceph vocabulary

• OSD — one disk contributing to the pool
• Monitor (MON) — tracks cluster state and membership
• Pool — a logical slice of storage with a replication rule
• Rule of thumb: 3+ nodes for a healthy Ceph cluster

When to use what

• Learning / single node -> local
• Shared files, backups -> NFS (TrueNAS)
• Production HA cluster -> Ceph

Proxmox Backup Server

• Dedicated, deduplicated, incremental backups
• Restore whole VMs or individual files
• Keep backups on separate hardware from the VMs they protect

Lab goals

• Stand up TrueNAS, export an NFS share, add it to Proxmox
• Move a VM's backup target to the NFS share
• (Stretch) Build a small Ceph pool across your nodes