Let’s take a deeper look at how we can Add additional drive in proxmox. Bobcares, as part of our Server management support services, guides you on how to install a new hard disk and configure it on the Proxmox server.

Additional Hard Drive to Proxmox

First, make sure you connect the hard drive to your server and then log in to the Proxmox console or even you can connect it via SSH from another computer.

You can identify the new disk by the given command:

lsblk

This will give results with the “sda NAME, MAJ:MIN, RM, SIZE, RO, TYPE, MOUNTPOINT” output. The disks are sda and sdb. We will be working on the drive which has a higher size.

Format the drive:

We will now format the drive using parted. Before proceeding further make sure you have installed parted. If you have not installed then you can simply use the below command to install:

apt policy parted
apt install parted

Create a new partition table of type GPT. Instead of using MBR, it is suggested to use GPT because it is the latest and also supports more than 2 TB disk.

parted /dev/sda mklabel gpt

You will be getting permission to execute regarding the existing disk label on /dev/sda if you want to continue or not, click on Yes to proceed further.

Next, we will make a new primary partition with Ext4 filesystem and use 100% of the disk.

parted -a opt /dev/sda mkpart primary ext4 0% 100%

Now, to check the new layout run the command: ” lsblk “.

From the result, you can now see a new partition sda1. This means we are good to go. Further, let’s create an ext4 filesystem on the sda1.

mkfs.ext4 -L storage2 /dev/sda1

Mount the New Disk

 To mount a new partition let’s create a new directory:

mkdir -p /mnt/storage2

Modify the /etc/fstab so can mount automatically upon system boots.

nano /etc/fstab

Add the following line

LABEL=storage2 /mnt/storage2 ext4 defaults 0 2

Mount the drive

mount -a

Now check with lsblk command again. As you can see, the /dev/sda1 is mounted as /mnt/storage2.

Prepare for Proxmox VM Backup

Let’s move further by preparing the disk to store the VM backups. create a backup directory using the below command:

mkdir /mnt/storage2/vm_backup

Next open the Proxmox web management console and access to Datacenter >> Storage >> Add>>Directory. Enter the required information there. Finally, click Add and you are good to go.

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Conclusion

By this Add additional drive in proxmox step by step procedure article, you will learn how a driver can auto mount after reboot and that can serve as storage space for your Proxmox installation. You can select it as storage when performing backups of CTs and VMs.