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Shared Storage for Hyper-V VMs (CSV)

Andrew Peplinski 0 Reputation points
2026-01-10T14:10:14.4066667+00:00

Hello! Setting up some CSVs for my home lab Hyper-V cluster, and wanted to see what my options are if I want to store my VMs on remote (local) QNAP NAS storage. Is iSCSI the only option? From what I can tell, SMB would work, but it would have to be a Windows Server target (and I don't see anything about NFS as a possibility).

Windows for business | Windows Server | Storage high availability | Virtualization and Hyper-V
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  1. Jason Nguyen Tran 12,485 Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2026-01-13T06:59:09.0466667+00:00

    Hi Andrew Peplinski,

    Has your issue been resolved, or would you like me to provide further assistance? If it’s fixed, please click “Accept Answer” so others can benefit too 😊

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  2. Jason Nguyen Tran 12,485 Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2026-01-10T14:55:23.9866667+00:00

    Hi Andrew Peplinski,

    For Hyper-V clusters using Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV), the supported storage protocols are primarily iSCSI and SMB 3.0. iSCSI is the most common option when connecting to NAS devices like QNAP, as it allows the NAS to present block-level storage that the cluster can use reliably. SMB 3.0 can also be used, but it requires a Windows Server-based file server target that supports continuously available shares, most third-party NAS devices do not fully meet these requirements. As for NFS, it is not supported for Hyper-V CSVs, so it would not be a viable option for VM storage in your cluster.

    If you want to use your QNAP NAS, iSCSI will be the recommended and supported approach. Be sure to configure multipath I/O (MPIO) for redundancy and performance, and validate the setup with the Cluster Validation Wizard before placing production workloads on it.

    If this guidance helps clarify your options, please don’t forget to press “Accept Answer” so I know it worked for you.

    Jason.

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  3. Q&A Assist
    2026-01-10T14:11:25.71+00:00
    AI generated content. This question contains an answer created with AI from Q&A Assist. Learn more

    For your Hyper-V cluster using Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV), you have a couple of options for remote storage. While iSCSI is indeed one option, SMB (Server Message Block) can also be utilized for shared storage, provided that the storage is accessible via SMB 3.0. This means that your QNAP NAS can serve as a file-based storage solution for your Hyper-V VMs if it supports SMB 3.0.

    Regarding NFS (Network File System), it is not mentioned as a supported option for Hyper-V shared storage in the context provided. Therefore, your best choices for remote storage in this scenario would be either iSCSI or SMB 3.0, with iSCSI being a more traditional block storage option and SMB being suitable for file-based storage scenarios.

    References:

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