Virtual volumes#

A system virtual volume is created automatically when a virtual server is created. You can also create and attach additional virtual volumes to servers.

At any time, you can:

  • Increase the volume size (but not decrease it).

  • Change the volume name.

  • View the volume creation date and UUID.

  • Attach or detach an additional virtual volume to or from a virtual server.

  • Change the pricing plan of an additional virtual volume.

  • Configure automatic backups.

  • Create a manual backup or a volume snapshot.

Creating additional volume#

To create an additional virtual volume:

  1. In the Control panel go to the Cloud → Volumes.

  2. Click Create.

  3. Select the server to which the volume will be attached.

  4. Depending on the selected server and its location, the available volume types and storage quotas will be displayed.

  5. Specify the required volume size.

    The minimum size of an additional volume is 16 GiB.

  6. Select an appropriate volume pricing plan:

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

  1. To protect your data, enable automatic backups. By default, the backup service is disabled.

  2. Enter the volume name (latin letters, numbers, and special characters are allowed).

  3. Click Create volume.

Quality of Service (QoS) for 3HCloud volumes#

The OpenStack documentation is the basis for creating volume performance rules by types.

Billing#

Virtual volumes are billed from the moment of creation until they are deleted.

An additional virtual volume that is detached from a virtual server continues to be billed.

Editing pricing plan#

To change the pricing plan (tariff) of an additional virtual volume:

  1. Go to Cloud → Volumes and click More for the selected volume.

  2. On the Volume Details page, under the Server section, click Disсonnect.

  3. Under the Volume type section, click Edit.

  4. Select a new pricing plan and click Save.

  5. Under the Server section, click Connect, select the required server, and click Save.

Note

You cannot change the pricing plan of a system virtual volume created together with a virtual server on your own. Please create a support ticket.

Increasing volume size#

System virtual volume

To increase the size of a system virtual volume:

  1. In the Control panel go to the Cloud → Virtual Servers.

  2. Select the required server and click More.

  3. On the Information tab, under the Data section, click Edit configuration and select System volume size.

  4. Specify the required size and click Save.

    The maximum size of a system volume is 2,000 GiB.

  5. To complete the resize process, the virtual server must be powered off and then powered on again.

Additional virtual volume

To increase the size of an additional virtual volume:

  1. In the Control panel open Cloud → Volumes.

  2. Select the required volume and click More.

  3. Under Volume size, click Edit.

  4. Specify the required size and click Save.

    The maximum size of an additional volume is 16,000 GiB.

  5. To complete the resize process, the server must be powered off and then powered on again.

Warning

A reboot will not complete the process. The server must be fully powered off and then powered on.

Resizing virtual volumes on Linux servers

On Linux servers, you can update the partition size using the following commands:

Ubuntu:

growpart /dev/sda 3

Debian:

resize2fs /dev/sda3

Red Hat:

xfs_growfs /dev/sda3

Decreasing volume size#

Volume size cannot be reduced because the system does not know which storage blocks contain data.

You can create a new, smaller volume, copy all data to it, and then delete the previous volume.

Deleting volume#

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

Additional volumes can be deleted either together with the virtual server or separately after disconnected them.

Attention

If you delete a volume, the data cannot be restored. We recommend creating a backup before deleting a volume.

Connecting an additional volume to Linux#

To attach an additional virtual volume to Linux virtual server:

  1. Open the list of all volumes 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.

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

parted /dev/sdb

  1. Create a GPT partition table:

(parted) mklabel gpt

  1. Check the created partition table:

(parted) print

  1. To exit parted type quit.

  2. Format the volume partition with the mkfs command (use the ext4 partition format):

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb

  1. Create a volume mount directory and mount the partitions into it:

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

  1. You can use the lsblk command to verify that the volume is mounted.

You can also auto-mount volumes and partitions in Linux using fstab.

fstab fstab is a text file that contains a list of storage devices and mount parameters. Devices that must be mounted automatically at system boot are listed in /etc/fstab in order. It may also contain devices that are not mounted automatically but are mounted with predefined parameters when using the standard mount command.

To configure automatic mounting:

  1. Find the UUID of the additional volume with blkid:

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

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

  1. 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

Where:

  • UUID — the UUID of the additional volume.

  • /mnt — the mount point.

  • relatime — updates the file access time only if the previous access time is earlier than the modification time.

  • First 0 — disables backup via dump.

  • Second 0 — disables filesystem check.

  1. Save the file and reboot the server to verify automatic mounting.

Connecting an additional volume to Windows 2019#

To attach an additional virtual volume to the Windows Server 2019 virtual server:

  1. Open Start → Control Panel.

  2. In the Control Panel, go to System and Security → Administrative Tools and open Computer Management.

  3. In Computer Management, open Storage → Volume Management.

  4. Find the additional volume in Offline mode. Right-click it and select Online.

  5. Right-click the volume again and select Initialize Volume.

  6. In the dialog box, choose either MBR (Master Boot Record) or GPT (GUID Partition Table) and click OK.

  7. Right-click the new volume, select New Simple Volume, and proceed in the wizard.

  8. Specify the partition size in megabytes and click Next.

  9. Assign a drive letter and path if necessary, then click Next.

  10. Select the file system, allocation unit size, and volume label, then click Next.

  11. Review the settings and click Finish.

After formatting, the volume is ready for use.