Mount existing backup drive on new PBS installation

[iacus]

Hi, I recently reinstalled Proxmox and PBS (same host). I have an existing external drive with backups for containers and VMs from my previous installation.

I see the drive is showing up in Proxmox, but I don't know how I can add it as a datastore. All the options seem to require a freshly wiped drive, which I want to hopefully avoid.

 

[cheiss]

Hi,

adding it back to PBS can be easily done manually, see e.g. https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/datastore-recovery.72835/#post-325491
Be sure to use an absolute path to the directory that contains the .chunks folder.

First you also need to mount the filesystem somewhere, but that depends on what filesystem you use exactly.

 

[iacus]

Thank you,

Manually you mean via editing the cfg files as opposed to thru GUI right?

When I do that, how can I get the storage to show up in PVE as well?

 

[cheiss]

Manually you mean via editing the cfg files as opposed to thru GUI right?

Yes, as lined out in the liked thread comment.

When I do that, how can I get the storage to show up in PVE as well?

After that, you should be able to normally add your PBS to your PVE cluster as usual.

 

[Chris]

Manually you mean via editing the cfg files as opposed to thru GUI right?

To add to @cheiss's answer: since PBS version 3.2.9 you can also do this in the GUI. Just go to Add Datastore > Advanced > Reuse existing datastore. Make sure the filesystem containing the datastore is mounted correctly first.

Edit: fixed version since when reusing datastores is available via GUI.