How to Safely Move a Proxmox VM Disk to Another Storage (GUI or CLI)

You often need to move a virtual machine disk to different storage in Proxmox VE, for a storage upgrade, better performance, a hardware replacement, or to balance workloads. Proxmox offers both graphical and command-line ways to do this safely.

Updated September 2026 · Mr.PlanB

Proxmox Backup Strategy Data Protection

Sections

Action Points

Guidance Blocks

Overview

Before you start, back up the VM so you don't lose data if something unexpected happens, such as a hardware failure or a network interruption.

Method 1: Using the Proxmox web interface

1. Select the target VM and power it off. 2. Go to Hardware > Hard Disk > Disk Action > Move Storage. 3. Choose the target storage and disk format. File-level storage supports RAW, QCOW2, and VMDK formats, and QCOW2 is generally recommended. 4. Decide whether to enable "Delete Source." To be safe, leave it unchecked until you have verified the migration. 5. Click "Move Disk" and wait for it to finish.

After the migration, the original disk shows up as "Unused Disk." Once you have verified the move, you can delete it.

Method 2: Using the command line

1. Identify available storage using:

pvesm status 2. Stop the VM:

qm stop VMID 3. Check disk configuration:

qm config VMID 4. Move the disk:

qm move_disk VMID source_disk target_storage 5. Restart the VM:

qm start VMID 6. Verify migration with:

qm config VMID

Both methods give the same result. The GUI is simpler for occasional moves, while the CLI suits automation and bulk migrations.