Shared Storage for Your Homelab: Samba and NFS File Shares Done Right

Every homelab hits the same wall around service number three: you’ve got a media server that needs a movie library, a photo backup that needs somewhere to put photos, and a laptop full of files you’d like to reach from the couch. Right now each of those lives on its own little island of storage, and copying between them is a chore.

The fix is a central file server — one place where files live, that everything else reads from. This guide builds one as a lightweight container in Proxmox, sharing files two ways: Samba for your Windows, Mac, phone, and TV, and NFS for other Linux containers and VMs on your network.

Step 1 — Create the file-server container

Create a small Debian or Ubuntu LXC in Proxmox (2 CPU, 1GB RAM is plenty — a file server barely works up a sweat). If you want to serve files from a Proxmox ZFS dataset or a second drive, add it as a bind mount to the container so the container sees your storage pool as a normal folder like /tank.

Step 2 — Samba, for Windows, Mac, phones, and TVs

Samba speaks SMB — the protocol every desktop OS already knows. Install it inside the container:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y samba

Create a folder to share and a user to access it. Samba keeps its own password separate from the Linux login password, so you set it explicitly with smbpasswd:

# Point this at your bind-mounted storage
sudo mkdir -p /tank/media
sudo chown -R 1000:1000 /tank/media

# Create a Linux user (no login shell needed) then a Samba password for it
sudo useradd -M -s /usr/sbin/nologin youradmin
sudo smbpasswd -a youradmin

Now define the share. Open /etc/samba/smb.conf and add a block at the bottom:

[media]
 path = /tank/media
 browseable = yes
 read only = no
 valid users = youradmin
 create mask = 0664
 directory mask = 0775

Restart Samba and, if you run the Proxmox firewall or ufw, allow SMB (port 445):

sudo systemctl restart smbd
# If you use ufw inside the container:
sudo ufw allow samba

That’s it. From Windows, open File Explorer and type \\SERVER-IP\media. On macOS, use Finder’s Go → Connect to Server and enter smb://SERVER-IP/media. Sign in as youradmin with the Samba password you set.

Step 3 — NFS, for your other Linux containers

For container-to-container access — say, letting Plex and the Arr stack read the same library — NFS is faster and avoids the login prompts SMB uses. Install the server:

sudo apt install -y nfs-kernel-server

Declare what to export and to whom in /etc/exports. Restrict it to your LAN subnet so only local machines can mount it:

/tank/media   192.168.1.0/24(rw,sync,no_subtree_check,all_squash,anonuid=1000,anongid=1000)

The all_squash with anonuid=1000 maps every client to UID 1000 — the same shared owner from Step 1 — so files created over NFS have consistent ownership. Apply it:

sudo exportfs -ra
sudo systemctl enable --now nfs-kernel-server

On a client container, mount it like any other folder:

sudo apt install -y nfs-common
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/media
sudo mount -t nfs SERVER-IP:/tank/media /mnt/media

# To make it permanent, add to /etc/fstab:
# SERVER-IP:/tank/media  /mnt/media  nfs  defaults,_netdev  0  0

You now have a foundation, not just a share

This one container is the storage backbone of almost everything else you’ll build. Your media server reads its library from here. Your photo backups land here. The Arr automation stack files downloads here — and because every app sees the same paths on the same share, it can move files with instant hardlinks instead of slow, space-doubling copies.

Set up storage once, correctly, and every service you add afterward gets easier. That’s the whole idea behind building a homelab in order.

Related posts:

• What Is a NAS? (And Which Kind Your Homelab Actually Needs) — the concept and buying decision behind this build
• Install Plex Media Server on a NAS or Proxmox LXC — a service that reads from these shares
• Immich: Self-Hosted Photos on Proxmox — point photo backups at your file server
• Proxmox Storage Guide: LVM, ZFS, NFS, and Ceph — the storage backing your shares
• Install Jellyfin on a NAS or Proxmox LXC — another media consumer of these shares
• Homelab Hardware Guide — pick hardware for a file server
• Proxmox LXC Networking — network the container serving your files

Sources: Samba, Samba wiki, Microsoft SMB file-server overview.