Proxmox server NVMe Storage Overview and Guide

NOTE: The article "Mount and share external drives uploaded on 09.12.2025 has easy to follow step by step directions for mounting external drives on a server (in this case Proxmox) and having docker containers access it from inside VMs running on the same server.

Proxmox Server NVMe Storage Overview Guide¶

Q: I have a Proxmox server with two internal storage NVMe SSDs and I'd like to see an overview of what's on all of them. How do I do that?

To get a full overview of what's on your Proxmox server's internal NVMe SSDs, you'll want to check:

1. Device details (names, sizes, mount points)
2. Partitioning and filesystem usage
3. Storage configuration in Proxmox (LVM, ZFS, directories, etc.)
4. Mounted volumes and disk usage

Here's how to get a full picture — step-by-step:

🔍 Step-by-Step: View What's on Your NVMe Drives¶

1. List All Block Devices¶

lsblk -o NAME,MODEL,SIZE,FSTYPE,MOUNTPOINT,LABEL

This shows: - All disks and partitions - Filesystem type (ext4, zfs_member, LVM2_member, etc.) - Mount points like /, /var/lib/vz, etc.

Sample Output:

NAME        MODEL        SIZE FSTYPE      MOUNTPOINT
nvme0n1     Samsung 980  1.0T
├─nvme0n1p1               512M vfat       /boot/efi
├─nvme0n1p2               1.0T LVM2_member
│ └─pve-root              96G ext4       /
│ └─pve-data             900G ext4       /var/lib/vz
nvme1n1     WD SN850X    1.0T zfs_member

2. Check Mounted Filesystems and Disk Usage¶

df -hT

• Shows what partitions are mounted, where, and how full they are.
• Useful to see how much space is used on each mount point.

3. Identify LVM Volumes (Common in Proxmox)¶

If you're using LVM (default for non-ZFS installs):

vgs       # Show volume groups
lvs       # Show logical volumes
lsblk     # Again — LVs show here too

Example output:

VG  #PV #LV  Attr    VSize   VFree
pve   1   3   wz--n-  931.00g 20.00g

4. Check ZFS Pools (If You're Using ZFS)¶

zpool status
zfs list

• zpool status shows health and disk layout
• zfs list shows datasets, mount points, and space usage

Example:

NAME    SIZE  ALLOC   FREE  CKPOINT  EXPANDSZ   FRAG    CAP  DEDUP  HEALTH
rpool   931G   150G   781G        -         -     5%    16%  1.00x  ONLINE

5. See Proxmox Storage Configuration¶

Proxmox manages storage via /etc/pve/storage.cfg. Check it with:

cat /etc/pve/storage.cfg

This file shows how storage is defined in the Proxmox UI — LVM, ZFS pools, directories, etc.

Example:

dir: local
    path /var/lib/vz
    content iso,backup,vztmpl,container,images

zfspool: local-zfs
    pool rpool/data
    content images,rootdir
    sparse 1

6. See Which VMs/CTs Are Using Which Disk¶

qm list                 # List all VMs
pct list                # List all LXC containers

Then inspect individual VMs:

qm config <vmid>

Look for lines like:

scsi0: local-zfs:vm-100-disk-0,size=32G

Or for containers:

pct config <ctid>

Bonus: See SMART Info for NVMe Drives¶

smartctl -a /dev/nvme0n1
smartctl -a /dev/nvme1n1

You may need to install smartmontools first:

apt install smartmontools

📦 Summary¶