Quickstart

Volumes

Volumes are persistent block storage you attach to a server like a second disk. Unlike the server's local disk, a volume survives deleting or rebuilding the server, and you can move it to another server whenever you like.

1. Create and attach

In Volumes, click Create volume, give it a name and a size (1 to 1000 GB). Then attach it to a running server, either from the volume row or from the Storage tab of the server. Attachment is live: no reboot, the disk shows up immediately.

2. Format and mount

A fresh volume is a raw block device. Format it once, then mount it.

# after attaching in the console, the volume appears as a new disk:
lsblk
# NAME   SIZE TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
# vda     40G disk            <- the server's local disk
# vdb     50G disk            <- your new volume

sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/vdb
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/data
sudo mount /dev/vdb /mnt/data

Add it to /etc/fstab so it comes back after a reboot. Use the UUID and nofail, so a detached volume can never leave your server stuck at boot.

# mount it on every boot, by UUID so device order cannot bite you:
sudo blkid /dev/vdb
# /dev/vdb: UUID="0d2f...c91" TYPE="ext4"

echo 'UUID=0d2f...c91  /mnt/data  ext4  defaults,nofail  0  2' | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab
sudo mount -a

3. Detach and move

Unmount inside the server first (sudo umount /mnt/data), then detach in the console. The volume keeps its data and can be attached to any other server in your project, which makes it a clean way to migrate a database to a bigger machine: detach, resize the server or launch a new one, attach, mount.

4. What it costs

€0.040 per GB per month, billed hourly from your credit, capped at the monthly figure. A 50 GB volume is about €2.00 a month. You pay for the size you provision, attached or not, so delete volumes you no longer need. Deleting a volume destroys its data permanently.

Local disk or volume?

For backups and large archives, object storage is cheaper still. See Object storage.