ZFS in Proxmox VE

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Proxmox VE has native ZFS support built in — no extra packages needed. You can create ZFS pools during installation or add them later, and use them as storage for VM disks, containers, and backups.

If you’re new to ZFS, start with the ZFS Introduction first.

ZFS During Proxmox Installation

The easiest way to set up ZFS in Proxmox is during installation. The installer lets you:

Select ZFS as the filesystem for the OS disk
Choose your RAID level (single, mirror, RAIDZ1, RAIDZ2, RAIDZ3)
Select which disks to include in the pool

This creates a pool called rpool for the OS and sets up ZFS automatically.

Add a ZFS Pool After Installation

If you want to add additional disks as a separate ZFS pool after Proxmox is installed:

Via the Web Interface

Go to Node → Disks → ZFS
Click “Create: ZFS”
Give it a name (e.g. datapool)
Select your RAID level
Select the disks to include
Click Create

The pool is automatically added as a storage backend in Proxmox.

Via the Command Line

# Mirror pool with two disks
zpool create datapool mirror \
  /dev/disk/by-id/ata-DISK1-ID \
  /dev/disk/by-id/ata-DISK2-ID

# RAIDZ1 with three disks
zpool create datapool raidz1 \
  /dev/disk/by-id/ata-DISK1-ID \
  /dev/disk/by-id/ata-DISK2-ID \
  /dev/disk/by-id/ata-DISK3-ID

Then add it to Proxmox storage:

Go to Datacenter → Storage → Add → ZFS
Select your pool
Choose what it can store (disk images, containers, backups)

Recommended ZFS Settings for Proxmox

Enable compression on your pool — it saves significant space for VM disks:

sudo zfs set compression=lz4 datapool

Set the correct ARC size to avoid ZFS consuming too much RAM (leave RAM for VMs):

# Limit ARC to 8GB (adjust based on your RAM)
echo "options zfs zfs_arc_max=8589934592" | \
  sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/zfs.conf
sudo update-initramfs -u

Using ZFS Storage for VMs

Once your ZFS pool is added as storage:

When creating a VM, select your ZFS pool as the storage location for the disk
Proxmox creates a ZFS volume (zvol) for each VM disk
The VM disk benefits from ZFS checksums, compression, and snapshots automatically

VM Snapshots with ZFS

ZFS snapshots in Proxmox are nearly instant and space-efficient. Unlike full backups, snapshots only track changes.

Take a snapshot via the web interface:

Select your VM
Go to Snapshots tab
Click “Take Snapshot”
Give it a name and description
Click OK

Via command line:

# List VM disks
zfs list | grep vm

# Take a snapshot manually
zfs snapshot datapool/vm-100-disk-0@before-update

# Roll back if something goes wrong
zfs rollback datapool/vm-100-disk-0@before-update

ZFS Replication Between Proxmox Nodes

ZFS send/receive is excellent for replicating VM storage between Proxmox nodes:

# Send a VM disk snapshot to another Proxmox node
zfs send datapool/vm-100-disk-0@snapshot1 | \
  ssh root@192.168.1.11 zfs receive datapool/vm-100-disk-0

# Incremental replication (only changes)
zfs send -i datapool/vm-100-disk-0@snapshot1 \
  datapool/vm-100-disk-0@snapshot2 | \
  ssh root@192.168.1.11 zfs receive datapool/vm-100-disk-0

This is a cost-effective way to keep a replica of important VMs on a second Proxmox node.

Monitor ZFS Pool Health in Proxmox

Via web interface:

Go to Node → Disks → ZFS — shows pool status and health