Best way to pass a 2TB HDD into a Docker container running inside a Proxmox VM, without losing existing data?

Help

I'm running Proxmox with a 5TB and a 2TB HDD. I want to get the data on the 2TB drive accessible inside a Docker container (running Jellyfin + a few other services) that lives in a VM.

My current plan:

  1. Passthrough the raw 2TB disk from Proxmox host to the VM (qm set <VMID> -scsi1 /dev/disk/by-id/...)
  2. Mount it inside the VM (/mnt/data)
  3. Bind mount that into the Docker container (-v /mnt/data:/data)

Questions:

  • Is disk passthrough the right approach here, or would I be better off keeping the drive on the Proxmox host and sharing it via NFS/Samba into the VM instead?
  • The drive already has data on it — is there any risk of that being wiped during passthrough, as long as I don't reformat it?
  • Any gotchas with /etc/fstab persistence across reboots when the disk is passed through this way (vs. natively attached)?
  • For anyone running a similar Jellyfin + Docker + Proxmox setup — did you go passthrough or network share, and why?

Appreciate any input — trying to avoid rookie mistakes before I touch a drive with actual data on it.

Posted Jul 11, 2026, 2:37 PM UTC

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