It is possible to create additional disks for your Public Cloud instances. This can be useful in cases where:
- You want to increase your storage capacity without changing the instance model.
- You want to have a highly available, high-performance storage.
- You want to move your storage as well as your data to another instance.
This guide explains how to create an additional disk and then configure it on one of your instances.
Prerequisites
- Log on to your control panel on https://register.edu.eu
- Order additional disk space
From an instance under Linux
admin@serveur-1:~$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
vda 254:0 0 10G 0 disk
└─vda1 254:1 0 10G 0 part /
vdb 254:16 0 10G 0 disk
VDA usually refers to your instance’s disk, VDB will therefore be the additional disk
admin@serveur-1:~$ sudo fdisk /dev/vdb
Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.25.2).
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
Be careful before using the write command.
Device does not contain a recognized partition table.
Created a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0x95c4adcc.
Command (m for help): n
Partition type
p primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)
e extended (container for logical partitions)
Select (default p):
Using default response p.
Partition number (1-4, default 1):
First sector (2048-20971519, default 2048):
Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G,T,P} (2048-20971519, default 20971519):
Created a new partition 1 of type 'Linux' and of size 10 GiB.
Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered.
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.
- The partition table has been altered.
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table. Syncing disks.[/code]
admin@serveur-1:~$ sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/vdb1
mke2fs 1.42.12 (29-Aug-2014)
Creating filesystem with 2621184 4k blocks and 655360 inodes
Filesystem UUID: 781be788-c4be-462b-b946-88429a43c0cf
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632
Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done
admin@serveur-1:~$ sudo mkdir /mnt/disk
admin@serveur-1:~$ sudo mount /dev/vdb1 /mnt/disk/
admin@serveur-1:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/vda1 9.8G 840M 8.6G 9% /
udev 10M 0 10M 0% /dev
tmpfs 393M 5.2M 388M 2% /run
tmpfs 982M 0 982M 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock
tmpfs 982M 0 982M 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/vdb1 9.8G 23M 9.2G 1% /mnt/disk
To mount a persistent disk, you have to change the /etc/fstab file:
Retrieve the block ID
admin@serveur-1:~$ sudo blkid
/dev/vda1: UUID="51ba13e7-398b-45f3-b5f3-fdfbe556f62c" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="000132ff-01"
/dev/vdb1: UUID="2e4a9012-bf0e-41ef-bf9a-fbf350803ac5" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="95c4adcc-01"
- Add your disk to the /etc/fstab file:
admin@serveur-1:~$ vim /etc/fstab
/etc/fstab: static file system information.
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
UUID=51ba13e7-398b-45f3-b5f3-fdfbe556f62c / ext4 defaults 0 0
UUID=2e4a9012-bf0e-41ef-bf9a-fbf350803ac5 /mnt/disk ext4 nofail 0 0
From an instance under Windows
- Access the disk manager tool
Format the disk
Warning: If the “offline (the disk is offline because of policy set by an administrator)” message appears, you have to change the disk properties by right clicking on your drive, then selecting “Online” and ” Initialise”, or using Diskpart:
- Start PowerShell or a command prompt
- Verification of the strategy applied:
PS C:\> diskpart
DISKPART> san
SAN Policy : Offline Shared
DISKPART> san policy = OnlineAll
DiskPart successfully changed the SAN policy for the current operating system . [/ Code]
- Implementation of the strategy on the extra disk:
[Code] DISKPART> list disk
Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 200 GB 0 B
* Disk 1 Offline 10 GB 1024 KB
DISKPART> select disk 1
Disk 1 is now the selected disk.
DISKPART> attributes disk clear readonly
Disk attributes cleared successfully.
DISKPART> attributes disk
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only : No
Boot Disk : No
Pagefile Disk : No
Hibernation File Disk : No
Crashdump Disk : No
Clustered Disk : No
DISKPART> online disk
DiskPart successfully onlined the selected disk.
- Start up the disk from the disk manager then format the disk.
Once the disk is formatted, you can simply access it from your file explorer.
