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Storage

The service-wide view of block storage: every volume, snapshot and backup in the service. (The per-instance views — a single instance's disks, snapshots and backups — live under Instances.)

Volumes​

Manage all of the service's block disks in one place.

Volumes

The table lists every volume with its Volume type, Persistent flag, Attached VM and Size. Each volume's … menu offers the actions available for its state — an unattached volume shows Attach and Remove; an attached one shows Resize, Detach and Snapshot.

Volume row menu

Create a volume​

Click Create volume:

Create a volume dialog

  1. Set a Volume name.
  2. Set the Size (GiB).
  3. Pick a Volume type (the storage tier).
  4. Create. The new volume appears in the list as unattached.

Attach, resize, detach​

  • Attach — bind an unattached volume to an instance. The instance and the volume must be in the same Zone. Once attached it appears under the instance's Volumes tab as a Data disk.
  • Resize — grow a volume to a larger size (you cannot shrink).
  • Detach — remove a Data disk from its instance; the data on the volume is kept. The System disk cannot be detached.
note

A volume is one disk attached to one instance at a time. To move data between instances, detach from one and attach to another (same zone), or use a snapshot.

Snapshots​

The list of all disk snapshots in the service.

Snapshots

Columns: Name, Snapshot ID, Instance, Increments, Size. A snapshot captures a disk's state at a point in time so you can revert to it. Creating and restoring snapshots is done from each instance's Snapshots tab — this page is the service-wide inventory (and where you delete old ones to reclaim quota).

Backups​

The list of all instance backups in the service.

Backups

Columns: Name, Type, Instance, Size, State, Created. A backup is a full copy of an instance's disks. Each backup's … menu has Restore and Delete:

Backup row menu

  • Restore — bring the backup back, either to a new instance (clone) or to an existing instance (roll back).
  • Delete — remove the backup to reclaim quota.

Create backups on demand or on a schedule from the instance's Backups tab.

tip

Snapshots are quick, incremental and disk-scoped — good for a fast revert point before a change. Backups are full, instance-scoped copies — good for recovery and cloning. Use Scheduled actions on the instance to automate either.