{"id":46023,"date":"2026-11-04T08:30:02","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T07:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.credativ.de\/?p=46023"},"modified":"2026-11-03T12:32:13","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T11:32:13","slug":"new-possibilities-for-shared-block-storage-in-proxmox-ve-lvm-thin-and-cetrafs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.credativ.de\/en\/blog\/virtualisation\/new-possibilities-for-shared-block-storage-in-proxmox-ve-lvm-thin-and-cetrafs\/","title":{"rendered":"New Possibilities for Shared Block Storage in Proxmox VE: LVM Thin and CetraFS"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\">Expanding Shared Storage Possibilities in Proxmox VE<\/h2>\n<p>Shared storage has long been an important topic in enterprise virtualization environments. Especially for organizations considering a migration from VMware to Proxmox Virtual Environment (VE), the ability to continue using existing storage infrastructure is often a decisive factor.<\/p>\n<p>Many enterprise environments rely on established storage technologies such as iSCSI, Fibre Channel (FC), or NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF). While Proxmox VE already provides several storage backends, there have historically been limitations when combining shared block storage with features such as thin provisioning, snapshots, and flexible virtual disk management.<\/p>\n<p>With recent developments in the Proxmox VE ecosystem, new possibilities are emerging. Two particularly interesting approaches are <strong>Shared LVM Thin<\/strong> and <strong>CetraFS<\/strong>. Both aim to extend the capabilities of existing shared block storage infrastructure, but they follow fundamentally different architectural approaches.<\/p>\n<p>At credativ, we actively follow these developments and contribute to making new storage technologies more accessible and easier to integrate into Proxmox VE environments.<\/p>\n<h2>Shared LVM Thin: Bringing Thin Provisioning to Shared Block Storage<\/h2>\n<p>One of the most interesting developments is the Shared LVM Thin storage plugin for Proxmox VE 9.x, developed by our employee <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/gyptazy\/\">Florian Paul Azim Hoberg<\/a> <\/strong>(Head of Virtualization), who is also well known in the open-source community as <a href=\"https:\/\/gyptazy.com\/\">gyptazy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Traditionally, administrators working with shared block storage in Proxmox VE had to choose between two approaches:<\/p>\n<ul data-spread=\"false\">\n<li><strong>Shared LVM:<\/strong> Allows multiple cluster nodes to access the same underlying storage, but traditionally relies on thick-provisioned logical volumes.<\/li>\n<li><strong>LVM-Thin:<\/strong> Provides thin provisioning, snapshots, and linked clones, but is designed for local storage rather than concurrent activation of a shared thin pool across multiple cluster nodes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This left a gap for environments that wanted to retain their existing SAN infrastructure while benefiting from thin provisioning and snapshot capabilities.<\/p>\n<p>With Proxmox VE 9, snapshot support for shared, thick-provisioned LVM was introduced through snapshot volume chains. However, thin provisioning remained an important missing feature.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/gyptazy.com\/blog\/proxmox-shared-block-storage-with-lvm-thin-provisioning-provider\/\">Florian&#8217;s Shared LVM Thin plugin<\/a> addresses this limitation through a different architectural approach. Instead of activating one shared LVM thin pool across multiple cluster nodes, the plugin creates a dedicated thin pool for each virtual machine or container within the shared LVM volume group.<\/p>\n<p>Since a guest normally runs on only one cluster node at a time, its dedicated thin pool can be activated exclusively on that node. During migration, the pool is deactivated on the source node before being activated on the destination node. This avoids the unsafe scenario of multiple hosts independently modifying the metadata of the same active thin pool.<\/p>\n<h3>Key Features<\/h3>\n<p>The plugin integrates with the existing Proxmox VE storage lifecycle and provides several important capabilities:<\/p>\n<ul data-spread=\"false\">\n<li>Thin-provisioned virtual disks on shared block storage.<\/li>\n<li>Snapshot creation, deletion, and rollback.<\/li>\n<li>Support for templates and linked clones.<\/li>\n<li>Virtual disk resizing and full cloning.<\/li>\n<li>Integration with Proxmox VE storage management.<\/li>\n<li>Command-line and API management.<\/li>\n<li>Additional integration into the Proxmox VE web interface.<\/li>\n<li>Cluster-wide locking for operations modifying shared LVM metadata.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The underlying storage can use existing iSCSI, Fibre Channel, or NVMe-oF infrastructure, making the solution particularly interesting for organizations that want to modernize their virtualization platform without replacing their storage arrays.<\/p>\n<p>Another important aspect is installation and maintenance. The plugin is distributed as a Debian package and is available through Florian&#8217;s Debian repository, allowing administrators to install and update it using standard APT package management.<\/p>\n<p>This makes it considerably easier to deploy the plugin consistently across all nodes of a Proxmox VE cluster.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For organizations with existing SAN infrastructure, Shared LVM Thin offers an interesting alternative to thick-provisioned shared LVM while retaining the familiar LVM-based storage architecture.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>More technical information is available in Florian&#8217;s article: <a href=\"https:\/\/gyptazy.com\/blog\/proxmox-shared-block-storage-with-lvm-thin-provisioning-provider\/\">Proxmox VE and Shared LVM-Thin Storage with Snapshots<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>CetraFS: A New Approach to Shared Clustered Filesystems<\/h2>\n<p>While Shared LVM Thin extends the traditional LVM approach, <strong>CetraFS<\/strong> takes a different direction.<\/p>\n<p>CetraFS is an independent clustered filesystem designed to allow multiple Linux hosts to access the same shared block device concurrently. Its overall concept addresses a familiar requirement in enterprise virtualization: providing shared filesystem storage for virtual machine disks across multiple hypervisor nodes.<\/p>\n<p>For many years, VMware environments have relied on VMFS to provide exactly this kind of functionality. Proxmox VE offers several established storage alternatives, but a straightforward equivalent for every shared-SAN use case has remained an ongoing discussion in the community.<\/p>\n<p>CetraFS explores a possible approach to closing this gap. Unlike conventional filesystems, CetraFS has its own filesystem implementation, on-disk format, kernel module, and userspace tools. Its architecture focuses on coordinated allocation, concurrent access, crash consistency, and the requirements of virtualization workloads.<\/p>\n<p>One particularly interesting aspect is its use of atomic SCSI COMPARE AND WRITE (CAW) operations. These operations allow participating nodes to coordinate access through the underlying storage device itself.<\/p>\n<p>The filesystem also incorporates features such as:<\/p>\n<ul data-spread=\"false\">\n<li>Concurrent access to shared block devices.<\/li>\n<li>Per-node write-ahead journals.<\/li>\n<li>Checksums for on-disk structures.<\/li>\n<li>Sparse-file support.<\/li>\n<li>Per-node allocation groups to reduce contention.<\/li>\n<li>Filesystem checking and maintenance tools.<\/li>\n<li>Support for virtual machine disk images and migration workflows.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This makes CetraFS an interesting project to follow for organizations looking for a filesystem-based alternative to traditional shared LVM storage.<\/p>\n<h3>Our Contributions to CetraFS<\/h3>\n<p>Florian has been closely following CetraFS development and actively contributing to making the project more accessible within the Proxmox VE ecosystem.<\/p>\n<p>Several improvements have already come from this involvement:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Debian package availability<br \/>\n<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/cetrafs\/cetrafs\/pull\/3\">CetraFS packages have been added to Florian&#8217;s Debian package repository<\/a>, making it possible to install the required components directly through APT instead of manually compiling and installing everything.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Proxmox VE web interface integration<br \/>\n<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/cetrafs\/cetrafs-proxmox\/pull\/1\">Florian contributed a GUI integration for CetraFS<\/a>, allowing administrators to configure and manage the storage through the familiar Proxmox VE web interface rather than relying exclusively on command-line operations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SCSI COMPARE AND WRITE improvements<br \/>\n<\/strong>Florian also contributed a fix related to CAW-based storage operations, which was <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/cetrafs\/cetrafs\/releases\/tag\/0.9.1\">merged into the CetraFS 0.9.1<\/a> release series.<\/p>\n<p>These contributions help bridge the gap between an interesting standalone storage project and something that Proxmox VE administrators can more easily evaluate and integrate into their environments.<\/p>\n<p>It is important to emphasize that CetraFS is still a young project and has not yet reached the maturity of established enterprise filesystems such as VMFS. Hardware compatibility, particularly support for atomic COMPARE AND WRITE operations, as well as fencing, recovery, and multipath behavior, must be carefully validated before considering production deployments.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, the project is developing in an interesting direction and deserves attention from anyone working with shared block storage in Linux virtualization environments.<\/p>\n<p>Further information is available at the <a href=\"https:\/\/cetrafs.com\/\">official CetraFS project website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Two Approaches, Different Use Cases<\/h2>\n<p>Although Shared LVM Thin and CetraFS both aim to improve the possibilities of working with shared block storage in Proxmox VE clusters, they are not direct competitors or interchangeable solutions.<\/p>\n<p>Their architectural differences make them suitable for different requirements.<\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<th>Feature<\/th>\n<th>Shared LVM Thin<\/th>\n<th>CetraFS<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Architecture<\/td>\n<td>LVM-based block storage<\/td>\n<td>Clustered filesystem<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Shared block storage<\/td>\n<td>Yes<\/td>\n<td>Yes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Thin provisioning<\/td>\n<td>Yes<\/td>\n<td>Yes, sparse files<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Concurrent filesystem mounts<\/td>\n<td>Not applicable<\/td>\n<td>Yes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Snapshot support<\/td>\n<td>LVM thin snapshots<\/td>\n<td>Filesystem-dependent capabilities<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Storage management<\/td>\n<td>Proxmox storage plugin<\/td>\n<td>Proxmox storage integration<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Web interface<\/td>\n<td>Yes<\/td>\n<td>Yes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Main objective<\/td>\n<td>Thin-provisioned VM disks on existing SANs<\/td>\n<td>Shared filesystem access across cluster nodes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>Shared LVM Thin is particularly interesting for organizations that want to retain their existing LVM and SAN architecture while gaining thin provisioning and snapshot functionality, however thin-provisioning can also become problematic as operators carefully need to monitor the data usage.<\/p>\n<p>CetraFS, on the other hand, explores a filesystem-based approach that allows multiple nodes to work with the same shared block device concurrently.<\/p>\n<p>The right choice ultimately depends on the existing infrastructure, operational requirements, hardware capabilities, and the desired storage architecture.<\/p>\n<h2>Looking Ahead: Proxmox VE Storage Is Evolving<\/h2>\n<p>The Proxmox VE storage ecosystem is seeing exciting developments. While there is still no universal solution covering every use case traditionally addressed by VMware VMFS, projects such as Shared LVM Thin and CetraFS demonstrate that the ecosystem is actively evolving.<\/p>\n<p>For us at credativ, these developments are particularly interesting because they provide organizations with additional options when modernizing their virtualization infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>We believe that supporting open-source projects, contributing improvements, and making new technologies easier to deploy are important parts of strengthening the Proxmox VE ecosystem.<\/p>\n<p>Florian is continuing to follow these projects closely and will share further insights from his work and experience with both technologies.<\/p>\n<h2>Meet Us at the Next Virtualization Gathering \u2013 12 December<\/h2>\n<p>Interested in learning more about Shared LVM Thin, CetraFS, and the future of shared storage in Proxmox VE?<\/p>\n<p>At our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.credativ.de\/event\/oss-virtualization-gathering-its-all-about-storage\/\">next <strong>Virtualization Gathering on 12 December<\/strong><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/gyptazy.com\">Florian<\/a> (gyptazy) will provide further information and technical insights into both solutions, including live demonstrations and benchmarks where he compares shared LVM Thick, shared LVM Thin and CetraFS.<\/p>\n<p>The session will cover the architectural concepts behind Shared LVM Thin, the possibilities of CetraFS, and the ongoing developments around integrating these technologies into Proxmox VE clusters.<\/p>\n<p>It will also be an opportunity to discuss practical use cases, technical challenges, and the future of shared block storage in the Proxmox ecosystem.<\/p>\n<p>We look forward to welcoming the community and exchanging ideas!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Expanding Shared Storage Possibilities in Proxmox VE Shared storage has long been an important topic in enterprise virtualization environments. Especially for organizations considering a migration from VMware to Proxmox Virtual Environment (VE), the ability to continue using existing storage infrastructure is often a decisive factor. Many enterprise environments rely on established storage technologies such as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1884,2052,2042],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events-en","category-proxmox-en","category-virtualisation"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.8 (Yoast SEO v28.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>New Possibilities for Shared Block Storage in Proxmox VE: LVM Thin and CetraFS - credativ\u00ae<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.credativ.de\/en\/blog\/virtualisation\/new-possibilities-for-shared-block-storage-in-proxmox-ve-lvm-thin-and-cetrafs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New Possibilities for Shared Block Storage in Proxmox VE: LVM Thin and CetraFS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Expanding Shared Storage Possibilities in Proxmox VE Shared storage has long been an important topic in enterprise virtualization environments. 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