Unlock Full SSD Speed in VMs with PCIe Passthrough on Proxmox VE

Discover how to bypass virtual machine (VM) bottlenecks and utilize the full speed of your SSD with PCIe passthrough on Proxmox VE. This tutorial guides you through the essential steps to configure your system for direct SSD access, ensuring optimal performance for your VMs.

🔧 *Step-by-Step Guide:*

*Step 1: Configuring Grub*
Edit the grub configuration to enable IOMMU:
```bash
nano /etc/default/grub
Comment out the existing GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT line and add the following:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet intel_iommu=on"
Save and update grub:
update-grub

Step 2: VFIO Modules Load the necessary VFIO modules at boot:

nano /etc/modules
Add the following lines:
vfio
vfio_iommu_type1
vfio_pci
vfio_virqfd

Step 3: IOMMU Interrupt Remapping Allow unsafe interrupts for IOMMU:

echo "options vfio_iommu_type1 allow_unsafe_interrupts=1" "right arrow icon" /etc/modprobe.d/iommu_unsafe_interrupts.conf
echo "options kvm ignore_msrs=1" "right arrow icon" /etc/modprobe.d/kvm.conf

Step 5: Identifying Hardware Identify your SSD’s hardware ID:

lspci -n -s 02:00
Replace '02:00' with your SSD's ID from the output

Final Step: Binding the SSD Bind your SSD to VFIO at boot:

echo "options vfio-pci ids=xxxx:xxxx disable_vga=1" "right arrow icon" /etc/modprobe.d/vfio.conf
Replace 'xxxx:xxxx' with your SSD's hardware IDs

Reboot your system to apply the changes and enjoy the enhanced performance!

📌 Note: Always back up your system before making significant changes.

💡 Why PCIe Passthrough? PCIe passthrough allows VMs to communicate directly with the physical hardware, bypassing the hypervisor layer. This results in reduced latency and higher throughput, especially beneficial for storage devices like SSDs.

👉 Follow along this video to set up your Proxmox VE server for PCIe SSD passthrough and say goodbye to VM bottlenecks!

#Proxmox #PCIePassthrough #SSDSpeed