Scalability is one of the key benefits of cloud services allowing you to grow your usage along with your company. Going up in Simple plans affords you not only more CPU cores and memory but also storage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, increasing storage size also requires increasing the partition on the operating system level. Luckily, increasing storage size is quick and easy thanks to automated filesystem resizing!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this tutorial, we\u2019ll show you how to easily increase the storage size of your Cloud Server.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Test hosting on UpCloud!<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Increasing storage device size<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
If you\u2019ve scaled up your Cloud Server by changing up to a higher tier Simple plan, you might want to also take advantage of the included additional storage space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Increasing storage size is a two-phase operation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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First, you will need to reserve the additional storage space<\/strong> by expanding your current storage device at your UpCloud Control Panel.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
Then, resize the filesystem<\/strong> to allow your Cloud Server to use the added storage space.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
Note that decreasing storage size is not quite as straightforward. If you expect to need to scale down your Cloud Server in the future, you might not want to increase your storage size until necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Start by increasing the storage size at the UpCloud Control Panel<\/a>. You will need to shut down your Cloud Server<\/strong> before you can change the storage configuration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When your server is powered down, open your server settings and go to the Storage<\/em> tab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the Storage<\/em> resources list, increase the storage device size<\/strong> by using the slider or by entering the desired value in the text field on the right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$\"Resizing$ <\/figure>\n\n\n\n
After you’ve selected the new desired storage size, click the Save<\/em> button and then choose whether to automatically resize the filesystem<\/strong> or to do it manually afterwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$\"Automatically$ <\/figure>\n\n\n\n
When saved to resize the filesystem and partition, the storage resizing is then performed automatically. Just sit back and wait for the process to complete before starting up your Cloud Server again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$\"Resizing$ <\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Once the storage size has been successfully increased, the new capacity will show up in the device information. The capacity indicates the storage space allocated to the device.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Start up your Cloud Server again and confirm your storage device was increased successfully. When you are certain everything is in order, you can delete the automated backup made before applying changes to the storage devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Manually extending a partition on Linux<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
If you chose to resize storage without applying changes to the filesystem and partition automatically, you will then need to make the changes manually. Before doing so, we highly recommend taking a backup of your server<\/a> before resizing storage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When your Cloud Server is up and running again, log in using SSH.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once in, check that your storage device has increased in size using the command below. Also, make note of your storage device and partition names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
lsblk<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT\nvda 252:0 0 50G 0 disk \n\u251c\u2500vda1 252:1 0 1007K 0 part \n\u2514\u2500vda2 252:2 0 25G 0 part \/<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Commonly you would be increasing the primary storage, which is usually called vda.<\/em> Any secondary storage devices would have a different dev name<\/i> such as\u00a0vdb<\/em>, or vdc<\/em>. You will notice that only the storage device size is showing the whole capacity you set at your UpCloud Control Panel, like 50 GB in the example output above. Follow through with the rest of this section to get the partition extended to use the whole storage space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Start by running the following command to open the partitioning tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
sudo parted<\/pre>\n\n\n\nGNU Parted 3.3\nUsing \/dev\/vda\nWelcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Next, check the current partition details by using the `print<\/tt> command as shown below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n`
`(parted) print<\/pre>\n\n\n\nDepending on your operating system, Parted may notice the new unused space available on the storage device. Enter \u201cfix\u201d as in the example below to continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n`Warning: Not all of the space available to \/dev\/vda appears to be used, you can fix the GPT to use all of the space (an extra 10485760\nblocks) or continue with the current setting?\nFix\/Ignore? fix<\/pre>\n\n\n\nOnce the partition manager has done its thing, or if Parted didn\u2019t prompt you about the unused space, you\u2019ll get a printout similar to the output underneath. Make note of the size of the storage device you extended, the last partition number and the filesystem type.<\/p>\n\n\n\nModel: Virtio Block Device (virtblk)\nDisk \/dev\/vda: 53.7GB\nSector size (logical\/physical): 512B\/512B\nPartition Table: gpt\nDisk Flags: \n\nNumber Start End Size File system Name Flags\n 1 17.4kB 1049kB 1031kB BIOS boot partition bios_grub\n 2 1049kB 26.8GB 26.8GB ext4 Linux filesystem<\/pre>\n\n\n\nYou can now extend the filesystem partition with the resizepart<\/tt> command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n(parted) resizepart<\/pre>\n\n\n\nThen make the following selections according to your storage size and partition number.<\/p>\n\n\n\nPartition number? 2\nWarning: Partition \/dev\/vda2 is being used. Are you sure you want to continue?\nYes\/No? yes\nEnd? [26.8GB]? 53.7GB<\/pre>\n\n\n\nIf you do not get any output or error, you were successful in extending the partition. Verify this by using the print<\/tt> command again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (parted) print<\/pre>\n\n\n\nModel: Virtio Block Device (virtblk)\nDisk \/dev\/vda: 53.7GB\nSector size (logical\/physical): 512B\/512B\nPartition Table: gpt\nDisk Flags: \n\nNumber Start End Size File system Name Flags\n 1 17.4kB 1049kB 1031kB BIOS boot partition bios_grub\n 2 1049kB 53.7GB 53.7GB ext4 Linux filesystem<\/pre>\n\n\n\nWith the partition resized, you can quit the parted application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (parted) quit<\/pre>\n\n\n\nNow that you have extended the partition to use the new storage space you are almost done. However, the filesystem still doesn\u2019t know about it. You can check this by running the following command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n df -h<\/pre>\n\n\n\nFilesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on\nudev 471M 0 471M 0% \/dev\ntmpfs 98M 652K 98M 1% \/run\n\/dev\/vda2 25G 2.1G 22G 9% \/\ntmpfs 490M 0 490M 0% \/dev\/shm\ntmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% \/run\/lock\ntmpfs 490M 0 490M 0% \/sys\/fs\/cgroup\ntmpfs 98M 0 98M 0% \/run\/user\/0<\/pre>\n\n\n\nContinue with the steps in the next section to fix this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Updating the filesystem on Linux<\/h2>\n\n\n\nOnce your server is up and running again, finish the operation by updating the filesystem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If your Cloud Server is using the EXT4 filesystem, you can do this with the resize2fs<\/em> command-line tool. Notice that the {partition} means the part on the disk you are expanding. Check the output of the lsblk<\/em> command if you are unsure. For example, if your storage device is called vda<\/em>, then your partition is probably named vda1<\/em> or vda2<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n sudo resize2fs \/dev\/{partition}<\/pre>\n\n\n\nresize2fs 1.45.5 (07-Jan-2020)\nFilesystem at \/dev\/vda2 is mounted on \/; on-line resizing required\nold_desc_blocks = 4, new_desc_blocks = 7\nThe filesystem on \/dev\/vda2 is now 13106939 (4k) blocks long.<\/pre>\n\n\n\nAlternatively, distributions like CentOS and other RHEL derivatives might use the XFS filesystem instead of EXT4. On these servers, you will need to use the xfs_growfs<\/em> tool to expand the partition. Install the utility if it cannot already be found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n sudo dnf install xfsprogs<\/pre>\n\n\n\nThen use the command underneath to resize your partition. Make sure to include the \u201c\/\u201d<\/em> in the command as it indicates the root directory required for the operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n sudo xfs_growfs \/<\/pre>\n\n\n\nmeta-data=\/dev\/vda2 isize=512 agcount=35, agsize=191935 blks\n = sectsz=512 attr=2, projid32bit=1\n = crc=1 finobt=1, sparse=1, rmapbt=0\n = reflink=1\ndata = bsize=4096 blocks=6553339, imaxpct=25\n = sunit=0 swidth=0 blks\nnaming =version 2 bsize=4096 ascii-ci=0, ftype=1\nlog =internal log bsize=4096 blocks=2560, version=2\n = sectsz=512 sunit=0 blks, lazy-count=1\nrealtime =none extsz=4096 blocks=0, rtextents=0\ndata blocks changed from 6553339 to 13106939<\/pre>\n\n\n\nYou are then done! Your filesystem should now be using all of the space allocated to the Cloud Server. You can verify this by checking the partition size with the command below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n df -h<\/pre>\n\n\n\nFilesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on\nudev 471M 0 471M 0% \/dev\ntmpfs 98M 660K 98M 1% \/run\n\/dev\/vda2 50G 2.1G 46G 5% \/\ntmpfs 490M 0 490M 0% \/dev\/shm\ntmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% \/run\/lock\ntmpfs 490M 0 490M 0% \/sys\/fs\/cgroup\ntmpfs 98M 0 98M 0% \/run\/user\/0<\/pre>\n\n\n\nThe example here demonstrates the process to extend a single 25GB storage to 50 GB. These steps are necessary when upgrading your cloud server to a higher-tier Simple plan, which comes with additional storage space. However, note that the process to decrease storage size is not this easy. If you are upgrading your Cloud Server only temporarily, you may wish to keep the storage size as is to be able to quickly downscale the server later on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Manually extending a partition on Windows<\/h2>\n\n\n\nWindows servers include management tools that can help you with resizing disks at the OS level. Log into your server for example with the Remote Desktop connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Start by opening the Disk Management<\/em>\u00a0panel. Right-clicking the Windows start icon and selecting it from the list, or typing\u00a0diskmgmt.msc<\/em>\u00a0in the search or run\u00a0and then pressing enter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The management application will indicate the unallocated space available on your disk with a black colour bar above the segment. Right-click the primary partition you wish to resize and select Extend volume.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\nIn the wizard, the default values will extend the partition to use up all of the unallocated storage. Simply click Next<\/em> on the first and second\u00a0windows unless you wish to only extend a certain amount. On the last screen check that the values are correct and click Finish<\/em> to confirm the changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a>Once the requested operation is complete, the Disk Management<\/em> panel will update to show the partition you extended now occupying the space previously unallocated. You are then done and can close the Disk Management<\/em> window. The added storage space is ready to use with no additional restarts required.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":31080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","community-category":[110],"class_list":["post-24967","tutorial","type-tutorial","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","community-category-storage"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studiogo.tech\/upcloudold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tutorial\/24967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studiogo.tech\/upcloudold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tutorial"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studiogo.tech\/upcloudold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/tutorial"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studiogo.tech\/upcloudold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studiogo.tech\/upcloudold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studiogo.tech\/upcloudold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"community-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studiogo.tech\/upcloudold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/community-category?post=24967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

Increasing storage device size<\/h2>\n\n\n\nIf you\u2019ve scaled up your Cloud Server by changing up to a higher tier Simple plan, you might want to also take advantage of the included additional storage space.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIncreasing storage size is a two-phase operation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n