Expanding storage in Proxmox VE does not always require additional physical disks or expensive NAS devices. A flexible and cost-effective solution is to add SMB storage from a Windows 10/11 machine to Proxmox VE.

By connecting Proxmox to an SMB shared folder on Windows, you can utilize available disk space to store:

• 💿 ISO files

• 💾 VM backups

• 🗄️ Virtual machine data

• 📦 Templates

This guide will walk you step by step through configuring SMB shares on Windows 10/11 and adding them to Proxmox VE. You will also learn how to assign permissions, verify connectivity, and test backups after mounting SMB storage.

This solution is ideal for:

• 🧪 Homelab environments

• 🏢 Small businesses

• 💡 Budget-conscious virtualization setups

No additional plugins are required. Everything can be configured directly from the Proxmox Web Interface or via shell.

📌 Step 1: Check if Windows Has Enabled SMB

On your Windows 10/11 machine, open PowerShell as Administrator and run:

👉 If the result is True → SMB is enabled and ready.

If the result is False, enable it using:

Ensuring SMB2/3 is enabled is critical for compatibility with Proxmox CIFS storage.

📂 Step 2: Create a Shared Folder on Windows

On your Windows 10/11 machine:

1. Create a folder named Share

2. Disable inheritance and configure separate user permissions

3. Grant full control to:

   • Administrator
     OR

   • A dedicated user account with full permissions

Make sure the selected user has:

• Read permission

• Write permission

• Full control access

Proper permissions are essential to avoid authentication or mount failures in Proxmox.

🔥 Step 3: Turn Off Windows Firewall

Temporarily disable Windows Firewall to ensure SMB connectivity between Proxmox and the Windows machine.

This helps eliminate connection blocking issues during initial setup.

(You can reconfigure firewall rules properly after confirming everything works.)

🖥️ Step 4: Add SMB Storage to Proxmox VE

You can add SMB storage in two ways:

✅ Option 1: Add via Proxmox GUI

Add CIFS storage directly from the Proxmox Web Interface.

Example environment:

• Proxmox IP: 192.168.11.247

• Windows Share IP: 192.168.11.5

Configure the CIFS storage using the Windows shared folder details.

✅ Option 2: Add via Proxmox Shell (CLI Method)

From the Proxmox shell, run:

Parameter Explanation:

• SMB → Storage name in Proxmox

• 192.168.11.5 → IP address of the Windows machine

• share → Shared folder name

• hp → Username to access SMB (no need to use .\ prefix)

• Abc#1234 → Password of the SMB user

• -smbversion 3.0 → Specifies SMB protocol version

After adding the storage, configure the allowed content types such as:

• ISO image

• Backup

• VZDump backup file

• Disk image

This allows Proxmox to properly store and manage virtualization data.

💾 Step 5: Test Backup to SMB Storage

To verify the configuration:

Run a VM backup job and select the newly added SMB storage as the target.

If the backup completes successfully, your SMB storage is properly mounted and operational.

This confirms:

• Authentication works

• Network connectivity is stable

• Storage permissions are correctly configured

🔎 Why Use SMB Storage for Proxmox?

Adding SMB storage from Windows provides:

• 💰 Cost-effective storage expansion

• ⚡ Quick deployment

• 🔄 Easy backup management

• 🧩 No extra hardware required

• 🖥️ Seamless integration with existing Windows environments

For homelab users and small IT setups, this is a practical and efficient way to extend Proxmox storage capacity.

🎯 Conclusion

Adding SMB storage from Windows 10/11 to Proxmox VE is a simple, effective, and secure way to expand your virtualization storage infrastructure.

By correctly:

• Enabling SMB

• Configuring share permissions

• Mounting CIFS storage in Proxmox

• Testing VM backups

You can integrate Windows-based storage into your Proxmox environment without additional software or hardware investments.

This is Part 6 (P6) of the Proxmox VE series, focusing on expanding storage using SMB/CIFS integration.