You click the button. TrueNAS builds the disks.
Proxmox VE has become one of the default landing spots for teams leaving VMware, and TrueNAS is already a common storage layer underneath those clusters. Most of those deployments run today on NFS or hand-cut iSCSI LUNs, and both are legitimate, well-worn ways to connect the two platforms. The TrueNAS Proxmox Plugin provides a new way of automating iSCSI LUNs and enabling much more efficient snapshots.
Proxmox’s own storage docs are upfront about the challenge: on NFS, snapshots run through QEMU Copy-on-Write files, and can block the VM while they’re happening, and on large disks can take “several minutes, or in extreme cases, even hours.” Hand-cut iSCSI LUNs avoid that specific cost, but bring their own: no native snapshot support at all before Proxmox VE 9, and every storage change becomes a change request instead of a click, a new zvol, a new iSCSI extent, a new LUN mapping, and a wait for approval and execution. Both of these are valid paths for presenting storage, but they each come with their own tradeoffs.
Proxmox’s own documentation frames this as the standard menu for any array without a plugin: NFS or hand-cut LUNs, pick your penalty. A vendor already running ZFS can sidestep some of it with Proxmox’s legacy “ZFS over iSCSI” plugin type, and most vendors without ZFS underneath don’t have any equivalent option at all. TrueNAS starts from OpenZFS as the native format and now ships a purpose-built, actively maintained plugin on top of it, so the compromise Proxmox describes for everyone else isn’t one you have to make.
The new TrueNAS Proxmox Plugin is a native Proxmox VE storage backend that lets Proxmox provision, snapshot, resize, migrate, and delete TrueNAS-backed VM disks directly, over iSCSI or NVMe/TCP, without manual LUN management. It’s built for shops that keep virtualization and storage separate, with Proxmox handling compute and TrueNAS as the data platform underneath, aimed at teams ready to move past manual provisioning. On TrueNAS 25.10+, it registers automatically and turns every VM disk request into an automated zvol, published as an iSCSI LUN or NVMe/TCP namespace.
This release is for Early Adopters: actively developed, and the version we’re introducing to TrueNAS Community Edition users first. TrueNAS Enterprise support is in active validation and orderable. Talk to your account team if you want to get ahead of it.
TrueNAS will also be working with Proxmox partners to enable complete systems integration. Contact us if you are interested in being a solutions partner.
What Actually Changes
After installing the TrueNAS Proxmox Plugin, Proxmox asks for disks and TrueNAS builds them. Admins spend less time in the array UI, provisioning mistakes drop, and new disks are automatically assigned to their VM. You keep the workflows you already trust in Proxmox (create, snapshot, template, resize, live migration, delete) while OpenZFS does the heavy lifting on the array.
Day-to-day, that means thinner, sparse volumes on demand, and native OpenZFS snapshots, including live snapshots that capture RAM state.
Clones, moves, backups, and imports still run host-side, so plan those operations the way you already do on Proxmox. Transport is yours to choose per storage entry: iSCSI today, or NVMe/TCP on Proxmox 9.x when the lowest latency matters. Pair the plugin with TrueNAS native NFS or SMB protocols, served from the same system and pool, to support your ISO and backup directories for a unified storage solution, with OpenZFS protection from top to bottom.
Installation follows how Proxmox shops already work: a signed APT (bookworm for PVE 8, trixie for PVE 9) with automatic version detection, a cluster-aware interactive installer with health checks and rollback, or a standalone .deb for air-gapped nodes. Grab the latest release from the truenas-proxmox-plugin GitHub repo for your PVE environment to get started. Full setup steps, including the TrueNAS-side configuration, are in the TrueNAS Proxmox VE Storage Plugin documentation.
The TrueNAS Proxmox Plugin operates with both TrueNAS Community Edition and Enterprise Appliances like the H-Series and V-Series. These platforms provide both High Availability (HA) and allow users to configure for maximum all-flash performance or for lower cost hybrid storage.
Who This Helps
Proxmox admins new to TrueNAS keep the cluster they already operate and change how disks appear. Shared VM disks arrive with OpenZFS integrity and automatic provisioning, so the afternoon spent wiring targets by hand becomes a storage entry and a verify pass. API key authentication replaces the SSH-as-root habits some ZFS-over-iSCSI workflows required.
TrueNAS admins new to Proxmox keep the storage layer they already trust. File, block, and object stay on one platform. The plugin is how Proxmox consumes block without turning every disk request into a TrueNAS UI session. Multi-tenancy rules (one dataset and one target or subsystem per cluster) let labs and service providers run several Proxmox clusters against one TrueNAS without extent-name collisions.
Teams migrating off VMware because licensing forced a platform decision can leave TrueNAS in place while compute lands on Proxmox. The plugin gives you a Proxmox-native path for automated block and snapshots, so the move stays a hypervisor change with storage continuity. Shares, replication, and OpenZFS snapshots stay on the same box. Treat it as separated compute and storage on TrueNAS, not as a hyperconverged Ceph substitute. For European and other teams watching data-sovereignty news closely, TrueNAS’s open architecture and self-hosted control of data location make this stack straightforward to evaluate on your own terms.
What You Get Today
You get Proxmox-native automation for TrueNAS block storage: one configuration entry, OpenZFS snapshots, iSCSI and NVMe/TCP, and a scripted installer that walks you through the process of configuring your Proxmox environment to connect with TrueNAS.
Community Edition and Proxmox users already on NFS or hand-built iSCSI: download the plugin from the truenas-proxmox-plugin releases page, install on a non-production cluster first, and verify against your workloads.
TrueNAS Enterprise customers evaluating Proxmox: talk to your account team for a design review before this touches anything in production. We’ll work through fit and requirements with you directly.
FAQ
What software versions do I need to run this?
Proxmox VE 8.x or later (9.x recommended) and TrueNAS 25.10 or later. NVMe/TCP transport specifically requires Proxmox VE 9.x plus the nvme-cli client initiator on each node.
Does the plugin replace my existing TrueNAS NFS or iSCSI setup?
For VM disks, yes – the plugin fully replaces manual iSCSI LUN management or an NFS-based QCOW solution. For ISOs and backups, no: the plugin only handles block storage, so file-based content stays on TrueNAS’s native NFS or SMB shares by design.
Does the TrueNAS Proxmox Plugin work with TrueNAS Enterprise?
Yes – Enterprise runs the same TrueNAS 25.10+ codebase, and is receiving ongoing validation. This release is scoped to Early Adopters while we continue hardening the plugin. Talk to your account team for a design review if you want in now.