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Adding a new SSD to PVE

· 2 min read

My Proxmox host has two SSD slots, and I have only been using one. The existing SSD has 1TB of storage, but usage is already at 80%. Thus, I decided to buy a new 2TB SSD to extend the existing lvm.

Prerequisites​

  • A new SSD
  • Installation Tools

01 Install SSD​

Installing the SSD is straightforward.

  1. remove the case
  2. Stick thermal (silicon) tape if provided
    1. if you only have one, prioritise the top side with metallic sticker
  3. Insert into slot and screw it into place

02 Setup​

Find name (path, actually) of new disk

Simply click on to Disks in the GUI to find, or use the following

sudo fdisk -l

Format the disk and create partition

sudo cfdisk /dev/sda # replace /dev/sda with disk path
  1. Replace /dev/sda with your disk path
  2. Follow the following in the TUI (use arrows and enter to navigate)
    1. New -> Primary -> Specify size in MB
    2. Write
    3. Quit

Create volume from new partition

sudo pvcreate /dev/sda1
  • Where /dev/sda1 is your partition name
    • It is commonly prefixed with your disk name, so enter your disk path and press <tab> might work

Add new volume to existing LVM

sudo vgextend pve /dev/sda1
  • Where pve is your LVM name
    • Find in PVE GUI: Disks > LVM
  • /dev/sda1 is the new partition name

03 Expand storage size of VMs​

I like to use the following command to expand my VMs, execute in the PVE console, not the device console.

qm resize 100 scsi0 32G

  1. Replace 100 with the VM ID
  2. Replace scsi0 with target hard disk
  3. Replace 32G with the target size (NOTE: not the size to expand, the final size after the expansion)

Then, from the console of the target VM, expand the partition to use the newly added storage space. The method varies across distributions and initialisation methods.

References​