Volumes#

Volumes are created with the virtual server but it is also possible to create an additional volume and select the server that requires additional volume.

It is possible at any time:

to expand volume space (but not to reduce);
to change the volume’s name;
to view the creation date and UUID of the volume;
to connect or disconnect the volume to or from a virtual server;
to set up automatic backups.

Create an additional volume#

In the Control Panel go to the “Cloud” / “Volumes” section.
Click the “Create” button.
Select the server that will be connected to the volume. Available volumes types and the quotas will be offered depending on the selected server and its location.
Specify the required volume size entering number of GiB or using the slider. The minimum size of an additional volume is 16 GiB.
Choose the appropriate type:

Type	IOPS	MB/sec
SSD Lite	1 000	100
SSD Start	2 500	200
SSD Smart	5 000	300
SSD Pro	10 000	500
SSD Ultra	25 000	750

To save your data enable automatic backup, the service is not enabled by default. Volume backups will be created automatically according to the specified schedule.
Specify a volume name. It is acceptable to use letters of the Latin alphabet, numbers and symbols (within reasonable limits).
Click the “Create volume” button.

Quality of Service (QoS) for 3HCloud Volumes#

The Openstack documentation is the basis for the creation of volume performance rules by types: https://docs.openstack.org/cinder/ussuri/admin/blockstorage-capacity-based-qos.html.

Connecting an additional volume to the Linux operating system#

Open the list of all disks connected to the server with the lsblk command:

NAME    MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda       8:0    0   89G  0 disk
├─sda1    8:1    0   88G  0 part /
└─sda2    8:14   0    1G  0 part
sdb       8:16   0   27G  0 disk

In the example, sdb is an additional volume.

If the disk is empty run the parted utility to create the file system and partitions of the additional volume:

parted /dev/sdb

Create a GPT partition table:

(parted) mklabel gpt

Check the created partition table:

(parted) print

To exit parted type quit.
Format the disk partition with the mkfs command (use the ext4 partition format):

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb

Create a disk mount directory and mount the partitions into it:

mkdir -p /mnt
mount /dev/sdb /mnt

You can use the lsblk command to verify that the disk is mounted.
You can also auto-mount disks and partitions in Linux using fstab.

fstab is a text file containing a list of storage devices and mount options. The various drives that need to be automatically attached at boot time of the operating system are listed in order in the fstab file. This file also contains information about devices that are not automatically attached, but when the device is mounted with the standard mount command, could be attached with the specified parameters.

Firstly, you need to find out the UUID of the additional disk by running the blkid command.

/dev/sdb: UUID="665937cb-466d-4710-8c90-2305b24603e0" TYPE="ext4"

You need to copy the fragment, namely: UUID= 665937cb-466d-4710-8c90-2305b24603e0.

Next, in the fstab text file using the nano editor, enter the required UUID:

sudo nano /etc/fstab
UUID=665937cb-466d-4710-8c90-2305b24603e0 /mnt ext4 relatime 0 0

UUID - UUID of the additional disk;
/mnt - the place where the volume is planned to be automatically mounted;
Relatime - enabling update the time of the last access to the file only if the previous access time was earlier than the current time of file modification;
The first “zero” - indicates whether this partition should be backed up by the dump program, if not indicate 0;
The second “zero” - checking the section for errors, in order not to do it indicate 0.

Save the fstab file and reboot the server to check if the additional disk is automatically mounted.

Connecting an additional volume to the Windows 2019 operating system#

Open Start - Control Panel.
In the Control Panel go to System and Security - Administrative Tools and open Computer Management.
In Computer Management select the Storage - Disk Management section.
Locate the additional disk in Offline mode. Right-click on the disk and select Online.
Right-click on the secondary disk and select Initialize Disk. In the window that appears specify the disk organization method MBR (Master Boot Record) or GPT (GUID Partition Table) and click OK.
Next, you need to right-click on the new disk and select New Simple Volume. A welcome window will appear, click Next>.
In the next window select the partition size in megabytes and click Next.
Next, you can assign a letter to the disk, path and click Next.
The last step is to select the file system, partition size and disk label. Click Next.
Check the settings again and complete the settings with the Finish button.
After formatting the disk is ready to use.

Resizing the system volume#

In the Control Panel go to the “Cloud” / “Virtual servers” section.
Select the required server and click “More”.
In the opened page on the Information tab in the Data section click on “Edit configuration” and select “System volume size”.
Specify the required volume size and click “Save”. The volume size cannot be reduced. The maximum size of a system volume cannot exceed 2,000 GiB.
For increasing the size of the system volume turned off and then turned on the server.

Resizing an additional volume#

In the Control Panel go to the “Cloud” / “Volumes” section.
Select the repuired disk and click “More”.
In the Volume Size section, click Edit.
Specify the required volume size and click “Save”. The volume size cannot be reduced. The maximum size of an additional voume cannot exceed 16,000 GiB.
To increase the size of an additional volume turned off and then turned on the server.

Delete volume#

The system volume can only be deleted together with the server which it is connected to.

Additional volume can be removed with the server or disconnected from the server and removed separately.

Attention

If you remove the volume the data cannot be recovered. We recommend you make a copy of the data before removing the volume.