Proxmox exclude disk from snapshot? There’s no per-disk checkbox. The only way is to put that disk on a storage that doesn’t support snapshots. Then it just gets skipped when you take a snapshot of the VM.
Why there’s no toggle
Proxmox snapshots work at the storage level. If the storage backend supports snapshots (like ZFS, LVM-thin, or Ceph), every disk on it gets included. If it doesn’t, the disk is left out. That’s it. No per-disk option in the GUI or API.
Test it with a two-disk VM
I spun up a test VM with two disks: one on local-lvm (thin LVM, snapshot-capable) and one on a directory storage (local, which is just a folder on the root filesystem). Took a snapshot from the GUI. Then checked the snapshot config:
qm config 100 | grep -A5 snapshotsThe output showed only the disk on local-lvm in the snapshot. The disk on the directory storage wasn’t listed. That’s the whole trick.
How to move a disk to non-snapshot storage
Use the GUI: select the VM, go to Hardware, select the disk, click Disk Action > Move Storage, and pick a non-snapshot storage like a directory or NFS share. Or from the CLI:
qm move-disk 100 scsi1 local --delete 1Replace scsi1 with your disk and local with the target storage. The --delete 1 removes the original disk after the move.
What about backups?
This only affects snapshots, not vzdump backups. vzdump includes all disks unless you exclude them in the backup job settings. If you’re using snapshots for backup, moving a disk to non-snapshot storage means it won’t be in the snapshot, but it’ll still be in the vzdump backup. Different mechanisms.
For more on backup quirks, check Backup Size vs Bootsize? Proxmox Backs Up Allocated Blocks, Not What the Guest Reports.
My take
It’s a bit annoying that Proxmox doesn’t have a simple exclude option. But moving the disk to a non-snapshot storage works fine if you don’t need snapshots for that particular disk. Just remember: if you ever need to roll back, that disk won’t be rolled back. Plan accordingly.
