Steps to migrate Proxmox to a new (larger) M.2 disk

[jess516]

I'm currently running Proxmox VE 6.4-15, which is no longer supported, on a 1TB M.2 SSD. I have 8 VMs on the M.2 SSD along with 60TB ZFS storage (cluster of HDs separate from the M.2 SSD). I want to move my Proxmox installation to a larger 2TB M.2 SSD and install PVE 8. I've been searching online for how to migrate but haven't found anything I have confidence in. I've reviewed steps to upgrade PVE from 6 to 7, and from 7 to 8, but I'm not sure if/how I can upgrade 6 to 8 directly. Can anyone outline the steps I need to take and/or a tutorial to walk me through the process? I want to back up all the VMs prior to migration to ensure I don't loose any data and I want to make sure I don't corrupt any of the media stored on the 60TB ZFS storage.

 

[BobhWasatch]

You could back up your VM and CT, do a fresh install, then restore them.

 

[jess516]

Thanks Bob. I don't have any CT volumes, just the 8 VMs. It's the ZFS storage I'm hoping won't get messed up. I can't find anything about backing up the config ... which I would assume should be done somehow prior to migrating.

 

[milew]

Thanks Bob. I don't have any CT volumes, just the 8 VMs. It's the ZFS storage I'm hoping won't get messed up. I can't find anything about backing up the config ... which I would assume should be done somehow prior to migrating.

your machine configuration is on path /etc/pve/nodes/you_node_name/qemu-server/your_machine_VMID.conf
or
qm config <VMID>
If you backup your machine from proxmox backup, backup has machine configuration.

Migration proxmox from 1TB to 2TB is posible and simple if you have zfs on system disk.

Migration form Proxmox 6 to 7 and next migrate 7 to 8.

 

[jess516]

your machine configuration is on path /etc/pve/nodes/you_node_name/qemu-server/your_machine_VMID.conf
or
qm config <VMID>
If you backup your machine from proxmox backup, backup has machine configuration.

Migration proxmox from 1TB to 2TB is posible and simple if you have zfs on system disk.

Migration form Proxmox 6 to 7 and next migrate 7 to 8.

Thanks Milew. My ZFS storage was created from several HDs, separate from the system disk, which is an M.2 SSD. I'm assuming I can mount an external drive and under the Proxmox Datacenter, add a Backup Job using "mode: stop", and run the job to backup all my VMs. I'm not sure how to backup the ZFS pool configuration so that, when I create a ZFS disk with the newly installed Proxmox 8, I can use the existing pool.

Here is some additional information on my drives setup. Drives sda-sdf were used to create the ZFS pool. One of my VMs is on a separate drive (mounted as plex on sdg/sdg1). The rest of the VMs are all on nvme0n1. The sdh drive is unused.

$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 9.1T 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 9.1T 0 part
└─sda9 8:9 0 8M 0 part
sdb 8:16 0 9.1T 0 disk
├─sdb1 8:17 0 9.1T 0 part
└─sdb9 8:25 0 8M 0 part
sdc 8:32 0 9.1T 0 disk
├─sdc1 8:33 0 9.1T 0 part
└─sdc9 8:41 0 8M 0 part
sdd 8:48 0 9.1T 0 disk
├─sdd1 8:49 0 9.1T 0 part
└─sdd9 8:57 0 8M 0 part
sde 8:64 0 9.1T 0 disk
├─sde1 8:65 0 9.1T 0 part
└─sde9 8:73 0 8M 0 part
sdf 8:80 0 9.1T 0 disk
├─sdf1 8:81 0 9.1T 0 part
└─sdf9 8:89 0 8M 0 part
sdg 8:96 0 2.7T 0 disk
└─sdg1 8:97 0 2.7T 0 part /mnt/plex
sdh 8:112 0 2.7T 0 disk
nvme0n1 259:0 0 931.5G 0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 1007K 0 part
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 512M 0 part /boot/efi
└─nvme0n1p3 259:3 0 931G 0 part
├─pve-swap 253:0 0 8G 0 lvm [SWAP]
├─pve-root 253:1 0 96G 0 lvm /
├─pve-data_tmeta 253:2 0 8.1G 0 lvm
│ └─pve-data-tpool 253:4 0 794.8G 0 lvm
│ ├─pve-data 253:5 0 794.8G 0 lvm
│ ├─pve-vm--105--disk--0 253:6 0 100G 0 lvm
│ ├─pve-vm--104--disk--0 253:7 0 256G 0 lvm
│ ├─pve-vm--108--disk--0 253:8 0 32G 0 lvm
│ ├─pve-vm--100--disk--0 253:9 0 20G 0 lvm
│ ├─pve-vm--101--disk--0 253:10 0 10G 0 lvm
│ ├─pve-vm--110--disk--0 253:11 0 400G 0 lvm
│ └─pve-vm--102--disk--0 253:12 0 50G 0 lvm
└─pve-data_tdata 253:3 0 794.8G 0 lvm
└─pve-data-tpool 253:4 0 794.8G 0 lvm
├─pve-data 253:5 0 794.8G 0 lvm
├─pve-vm--105--disk--0 253:6 0 100G 0 lvm
├─pve-vm--104--disk--0 253:7 0 256G 0 lvm
├─pve-vm--108--disk--0 253:8 0 32G 0 lvm
├─pve-vm--100--disk--0 253:9 0 20G 0 lvm
├─pve-vm--101--disk--0 253:10 0 10G 0 lvm
├─pve-vm--110--disk--0 253:11 0 400G 0 lvm
└─pve-vm--102--disk--0 253:12 0 50G 0 lvm

$ sudo zpool status -v
pool: plexmedia
state: ONLINE
scan: scrub repaired 0B in 12:01:17 with 0 errors on Sun Dec 10 12:25:19 2023
config:

NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM
plexmedia ONLINE 0 0 0
raidz2-0 ONLINE 0 0 0
ata-WDC_WD100EFAX-68LHPN0_JEK182AZ ONLINE 0 0 0
ata-WDC_WD101KFBX-68R56N0_2YJH17RD ONLINE 0 0 0
ata-WDC_WD101KFBX-68R56N0_2YJH9LJD ONLINE 0 0 0
ata-WDC_WD101KFBX-68R56N0_2YJHAW9D ONLINE 0 0 0
ata-WDC_WD101KFBX-68R56N0_JEHLW5MN ONLINE 0 0 0
ata-WDC_WD101KFBX-68R56N0_JEHLXA6N ONLINE 0 0 0

errors: No known data errors

$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev 16G 0 16G 0% /dev
tmpfs 3.2G 26M 3.2G 1% /run
/dev/mapper/pve-root 94G 69G 21G 77% /
tmpfs 16G 43M 16G 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock
tmpfs 16G 0 16G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/nvme0n1p2 511M 312K 511M 1% /boot/efi
/dev/sdg1 2.7T 168G 2.4T 7% /mnt/plex
plexmedia 37T 23T 14T 62% /mnt/plexmedia
/dev/fuse 30M 24K 30M 1% /etc/pve
tmpfs 3.2G 0 3.2G 0% /run/user/1000

 

[jess516]

From what I've read, I should be able to export the zfs pool and import it with the new M.2 drive. However, I've removing the existing M.2 drive that is being used with the zfs pool. If I run "zpool import plexmedia" using the new M.2 drive and fresh installation of Proxmox, will the pool be recognized? Where is the configuration files that the pool uses?

 

[milew]

The pool configuration is not saved in any file (at least I don't think so) but is saved on each vdev (disk, partition) used in the pool.
Yes, you can import a pool created on another system.
From what you showed, some of the disks of your virtual machines are saved on the LVM system disk. You need to move this somewhere else before replacing the system drive.