diff --git a/PVE/Storage/DirPlugin.pm b/PVE/Storage/DirPlugin.pm
index 1baad63..53eb642 100644
--- a/PVE/Storage/DirPlugin.pm
+++ b/PVE/Storage/DirPlugin.pm
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ use strict;
 use warnings;
 
 use Cwd;
+use Encode qw(decode encode);
 use File::Path;
 use IO::File;
 use POSIX;
@@ -104,7 +105,10 @@ sub get_volume_notes {
     my $path = $class->filesystem_path($scfg, $volname);
     $path .= $class->SUPER::NOTES_EXT;
 
-    return PVE::Tools::file_get_contents($path) if -f $path;
+    if (-f $path) {
+	my $data = PVE::Tools::file_get_contents($path);
+	return eval { decode('UTF-8', $data, 1) } // $data;
+    }
 
     return '';
 }
@@ -121,7 +125,8 @@ sub update_volume_notes {
     $path .= $class->SUPER::NOTES_EXT;
 
     if (defined($notes) && $notes ne '') {
-	PVE::Tools::file_set_contents($path, $notes);
+	my $encoded = encode('UTF-8', $notes);
+	PVE::Tools::file_set_contents($path, $encoded);
     } else {
 	unlink $path or $! == ENOENT or die "could not delete notes - $!\n";
     }
diff --git a/PVE/Storage/Plugin.pm b/PVE/Storage/Plugin.pm
index d2974ee..0a100b7 100644
--- a/PVE/Storage/Plugin.pm
+++ b/PVE/Storage/Plugin.pm
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ package PVE::Storage::Plugin;
 use strict;
 use warnings;
 
+use Encode qw(decode);
 use Fcntl ':mode';
 use File::chdir;
 use File::Path;
@@ -1197,7 +1198,7 @@ my $get_subdir_files = sub {
 	    my $notes_fn = $original.NOTES_EXT;
 	    if (-f $notes_fn) {
 		my $notes = PVE::Tools::file_read_firstline($notes_fn);
-		$info->{notes} = $notes if defined($notes);
+		$info->{notes} = eval { decode('UTF-8', $notes, 1) } // $notes if defined($notes);
 	    }
 
 	    $info->{protected} = 1 if -e PVE::Storage::protection_file_path($original);