1. How I migrated from one Proxmox host to another: - fdisk -l - I was looking for the 128gb USB - mkdir /mnt/usb - making the mounting point to mount the USB to, with the intention of making a backup directory here - mount {result of fdisk -l, in my case /dev/sdb1} /mnt/usb 1. (.5) I didn't want to permanently mount it since this will be a migratory drive and I'm okay with doing this command again if necessary. If I wanted to permanently mount a USB drive for external storage, I'd do the below: ``` nano /etc/fstab ``` and write this line (you can replace exfat with a different FS type that fits your use case better) ``` /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb exfat defaults 0 0 ``` 2. Step two was to actually create the backup directory. Open Proxmox web UI and navigate to **Datacenter -> Storage**. Click **"Add"** button and choose **"Directory"** from the drop-down menu. In ID, I put ``` ``` ProxmoxBackup_USB ``` In Directory, I put the backup directory. This USB is meant to be multipurpose, so I created another folder to store the backups in. ``` /mnt/usb/ProxmoxBackups ``` I chose to add VZDump backup files to the file types, so now there can be two types of storage backed up to this directory. VZDumps I think are the default, and are really easy to restore from. I left "Disk Image" as well, though I haven't needed to use that yet. 3. Then I went to the machines I wanted to backup, in this case all of my small test VMs. I clicked "Backup" then > "Backup Now" at the top of the page. Depending on if you already had a backup solution in place, you'll want to select the new Proxmox_USB storage we created earlier under the Datacenter tab. I left the rest as default. Repeat the Backup step as many times as you have need to. If your VMs are large/not for development you'll need something bigger than a USB to back them up. 4. I then created the same mounting point and backup directory in the host to which I wanted to migrate these VMs. I kept the naming scheme the same to keep things simple. 5. Unplug the usb from the old host to the new host, and remount using step one again. 6. The storage location should show up in your left panel underneath the host you're currently operating under. 1. select Proxmox_USB 2. navigate to Backups, the second option in the tree 3. select the VM you want to restore at the new location 4. Click 'Restore' at the top of the UI Make sure your VMs work before you delete anything off your prior host or the backup USB! Is there a better way to do this? Absolutely. I'll be experimenting with the dedicated proxmox backup server soon. A cheap USB is easy and a financially secure option to take. And, for a few dollars more, this can be replicated with an external drive with a hell of a lot more storage. --- Migrating the backups from the USB to the existing external drive ``` cp -a /mnt/usb/ProxBackup/dump/. /Proxmox_Backup/backup/dump/ ``` This puts all the USB backups (which are small) into my existing Proxmox Backup directory (which is very large). I really need to solidify a naming scheme on my next host.