Fibre Channel (FC-SAN) support

[sys92]

Are there any plans to introduce native Fibre Channel (FC-SAN) support with full snapshot and shared storage capabilities in upcoming Proxmox VE releases?

Currently, it’s possible to work with FC using multipath and LVM, but the lack of snapshot support and true shared storage integration limits its usefulness in enterprise environments—especially when compared to VMware and similar platforms.

This enhancement would significantly increase Proxmox's competitiveness in virtualization setups where high-performance SAN infrastructure is already in place.

Any insights or roadmap details would be appreciated.

Thanks!!!

 

[bbgeek17]

Hi @sys92, welcome to the forum.

native Fibre Channel (FC-SAN) support

If by “native” you mean vendor-specific FC integrations, then no - there are currently no plans in that direction.
If you’re referring to native FC support within Proxmox VE itself, any developments in this area would likely remain in test or no-subscription repositories for the foreseeable future - so not recommended for production use just yet.

compared to VMware and similar platforms.

VMware relies on VMFS - a proprietary, clustered file system specifically engineered for shared FC-based storage. There’s no directly comparable, production-ready alternative in the PVE ecosystem today.

This enhancement would significantly increase Proxmox's competitiveness in virtualization setups where high-performance SAN infrastructure is already in place.

Proxmox has steadily grown by focusing on its core strengths and capturing a specific segment of the virtualization market. Rushing to implement complex storage functionality, especially one that touches core components like snapshotting and cluster coherency would go against its carefully considered development philosophy.

That said, there are storage vendors outside of the traditional "storage cartel" who do support Proxmox natively and deliver robust functionality.

In the meantime, you might find this knowledge base article helpful: https://kb.blockbridge.com/technote/proxmox-lvm-shared-storage/

---

Blockbridge : Ultra low latency all-NVME shared storage for Proxmox - https://www.blockbridge.com/proxmox

 

[LnxBil]

There’s no directly comparable, production-ready alternative in the PVE ecosystem today.

I would even replace PVE with Linux in this sentence and I don't see that this will happen any time soon, if at all. No big player / contributer to Linux is using such antiquated technology anymore and therefore there is no need and no manpower to implement this.

We are almost at a point where this question gets asked multiple times per week. Maybe it's time to create a page like linuxatemymemory, but for FC-based SAN ... like WhyDoesProxmoxVeNotSupportFcBasedSanWithSnapshotsAndThinProvisioningAndNeverWill.com and redirect people there.

 

[alexskysilk]

Are there any plans to introduce native Fibre Channel (FC-SAN) support with full snapshot and shared storage capabilities in upcoming Proxmox VE releases?

I know @bbgeek17 is too humble, but I'm pretty sure you can get the functionality you are after using blockbridge. The state of PVE's support of block level SANs via API has been "not in scope" for a long time, and doesnt look like it will be.

I would even replace PVE with Linux in this sentence

Linux is not a hypervisor. there are plenty of linux based hypervisors that support this functionality (XCP-NG, RHEV, openstack, etc.)

 

[LnxBil]

Linux is not a hypervisor. there are plenty of linux based hypervisors that support this functionality (XCP-NG, RHEV, openstack, etc.)

With what production ready dedicated shared storage filesystem?

 

[alexskysilk]

I'm not a red hat rep. if you really want to know, reach out to their sales team otherwise, this may help: https://docs.openstack.org/cinder/latest/reference/support-matrix.html

 

[LnxBil]

I'm not a red hat rep. if you really want to know, reach out to their sales team otherwise, this may help: https://docs.openstack.org/cinder/latest/reference/support-matrix.html

I don't see any Linux kernel driver that is not part of Linux itself, just hardware vendor / product integration. Most are hardware vendor integration drivers similar to the ones that exist for PVE. If more vendors would support PVE directly, PVE would not always be blamed by people for not integrating storage technology xyz. It's simply not their task, but then vendors. Blockbridge is the best example how to do it properly. Therefore I recommend it to everyone that asks me what to use if CEPH is out-of-the-picture.

 

[alexskysilk]

I don't see any Linux kernel driver that is not part of Linux itself

exactly. the drivers are fine.

. Most are hardware vendor integration drivers similar to the ones that exist for PVE

yes. that is the point.

PVE would not always be blamed by people

thats kind of a silly point to make. PVE isnt responsible for anything, and choose what they want to support. Again, kind of the point. Its not a TECHNOLOGICAL limitation.