How to Attach Additional Disk on your KVM based VPS
Attaching an additional disk to your KVM-based Virtual Private Server (VPS) can provide you with extra storage space for data, applications, or any other specific needs. This process allows you to expand your server's storage capacity, making it a useful task for managing your VPS efficiently.
In this guide, we'll walk you through the steps to attach an additional disk to your KVM-based VPS. The process generally involves creating a new disk, formatting it, partitioning it with a filesystem, and mounting it to your VPS.
Once the additional disk has been assigned to your Server, we need to verify the disk by using the fdisk -l
command:
fdisk -l
Output
root@vps:~# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/vda: 150 GiB, 161061273600 bytes, 314572800 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: CA147C86-F18D-46FC-A68E-BC0F0EFB040E
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/vda1 2048 4095 2048 1M BIOS boot
/dev/vda2 4096 1052671 1048576 512M Linux swap
/dev/vda3 1052672 314570239 313517568 149.5G Linux filesystem
Disk /dev/vdb: 50 GiB, 53687091200 bytes, 104857600 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
As you can notice from the above output, there are two disks present on the server.
The first disk /dev/vda contains the main system partitions, while the second disk /dev/vdb is the newly added disk with no partitions present.
Note: It is important to note down the correct disk name for the below steps. Formatting the wrong disk would result in permanent data loss. In our case, it is vdb, but the disk name may vary for you
This is for EXT4 Filesystems only.
Format the new disk into EXT4 Filesystem with the below command.
mkfs.ext4 /dev/vdb
Create a mount directory on the server on which the new disk will be mounted.
This can be named as per your requirements.
mkdir /disk2
Now, mount the disk onto the /disk2 directory.
mount /dev/vdb /disk2/
Next, we will add an entry into /etc/fstab
so the disk is mounted permanently.
vi /etc/fstab
Add the following line to the end of the file:
/dev/vdb /disk2 ext4 defaults 0 0
Save changes and exit the file.
Verify the changes made and that the disk is mounted onto /disk2 with the following commands:
fdisk -l
df -Th
Output:
root@vps:~# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/vda: 150 GiB, 161061273600 bytes, 314572800 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: CA147C86-F18D-46FC-A68E-BC0F0EFB040E
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/vda1 2048 4095 2048 1M BIOS boot
/dev/vda2 4096 1052671 1048576 512M Linux swap
/dev/vda3 1052672 314570239 313517568 149.5G Linux filesystem
Disk /dev/vdb: 50 GiB, 53687091200 bytes, 104857600 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
root@vps:~# df -Th
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
tmpfs tmpfs 96M 1008K 95M 2% /run
/dev/vda3 ext4 148G 3.1G 137G 3% /
tmpfs tmpfs 479M 0 479M 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock
tmpfs tmpfs 96M 4.0K 96M 1% /run/user/0
/dev/vdb ext4 49G 24K 47G 1% /disk2
CrownCloud - Get a SSD powered KVM VPS at $4.5/month!
Use the code WELCOME
for 10% off!
1 GB RAM / 25 GB SSD / 1 CPU Core / 1 TB Bandwidth per month
Available Locations: LAX | MIA | ATL | FRA | AMS