Block storage

Provision raw disk storage

Block storage requires a quota to be added to your account. For access, contact your account team via Slack or email [e-mail]

Block storage gives you the most control over your storage approach by providing a blank disk that can be attached to your instances. Block storage typically requires a more lengthy setup. If you need shared storage across multiple instances, we recommend using file share storage instead.

Block storage volumes are single-writer. You can only mount a volume read-write from only one instance at a time. Mounting the same volume read-write from multiple instances is unsupported and will likely cause filesystem and data corruption.

The only supported multi-instance pattern is mounting the volume read-only, with no concurrent write mounts. For more details, please contact support.

Provisioning block storage

To provision block storage, go to Storage, select + Create Storage, and select Block.

1. Select the region you would like to provision your Block storage in.
2. Select the size for your disk. Currently, each block storage disk has a maximum size of 32TB.

   NOTE: instances in us-central2-a have 15TB and instances in us-central2-b have 12.5TB of ephemeral storage.

Tip: Give your disks different sizes to make it easier to find the disk you're looking for inside your VM.

Attach storage to reservations and spot bids

Provisioned storage is available for selection while creating a reservations or spot bid. You can attach as many storage options as needed from the same region. If you select a region that does not have provisioned storage, it will not appear as an option.

For existing instances, you can attach/detach storage volumes when the instances are in a Paused state. You will need to manually mount the new volumes.

Currently, it's not possible to shrink/expand disk size.

Using the disk from your instance

Find the disk device name(s) using lsblk

List your block devices with lsblk. Your selected disks will start from vdd and extend to however many you added in order alphabetically.

$ lsblk

First time only - format the disks

If this is the first time using this disk, you will need to format and define a filesystem. In the below command:

• Replace /mount/dir/path with the local directory where you want the disk mounted
• Replace /dev/name with the disk name selected from the output of lsblk

⚠️ Running this command will erase the disk content if previously mounted ⚠️

sudo mkdir -p /mount/dir/path
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/name

Repeat this for all disks you are formatting.

Mount the disks

Finally, mount the disk with the below, replacing /dev/name and /mount/dir/path with the local directory of where the disk will be mounted and the disk name

sudo mount -t ext4 /dev/name /mount/dir/path
sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /mount/dir/path

Repeat this for all disks you are mounting.

Persist mounted disks across reboots

1. Get the UUID of your disks

sudo blkid

1. Open /etc/fstab in your text editor

sudo vim /etc/fstab

1. Add the disk to your fstab

# Example template
UUID=DISK_UUID MOUNT_POINT ext4 OPTIONS <dump> <pass> 

It looks something like this. We strongly recommend using the nofail option to prevent instance failure in case of disk failure or disk removal.

UUID=f124a6dc-a10f-4ff4-81cd-6a3990c1aa7d /mnt/disk ext4 defaults,nofail 0 2 

1. Save and mount

sudo mount -a

Quotas

Each project has a total storage capacity quota that accumulates usage across all regions. Contact your account team via Slack or email [e-mail] to increase your quota.