Increasing capacity of a Block Storage for VPC boot volume

Increase boot volume capacity during instance provisioning in the UI

When you create new instance from either a stock or custom image, you can increase the size of the boot volume. For example, a stock image would show 100 GB by default. You can modify the size up to 250 GB. For more information about creating virtual server instances, see Creating virtual server instances in the UI. In that topic, the information for boot volume in Table 1 explains this process.

You can also specify a larger boot volume capacity when you create an instance template. For more information, see Creating an instance template.

Increase boot volume capacity from the list of Block Storage volumes in the UI

For an existing instance, you can increase its boot volume capacity by selecting it from the list of Block Storage volumes.

1. Go to the list of Block Storage volumes. In the IBM Cloud console, click the Navigation Menu icon > VPC Infrastructure > Storage > Block Storage volumes.

2. Select a boot volume from the list of volumes. The attachment type is boot.

3. In the boot volume details, click the Size pencil icon. Alternatively, select Expand volume from the Actions menu .

4. In the side panel, increase the boot volume size in the Create size field. The size must be more than the current size up to 250 GB.

5. Click Expand boot volume size.

Before you begin

Before you can use the CLI, you must install the IBM Cloud CLI and the VPC CLI plug-in. For more information, see the CLI prerequisites.

1. Log in to the IBM Cloud.

   ibmcloud login --sso -a cloud.ibm.com
   

   This command returns a URL and prompts for a passcode. Go to that URL in your browser and log in. If successful, you get a one-time passcode. Copy this passcode and paste it as a response on the prompt. After successful authentication, you are prompted to choose your account. If you have access to multiple accounts, select the account that you want to log in as. Respond to any remaining prompts to finish logging in.

2. Select the current generation of VPC.

   ibmcloud is target --gen 2
   

Increase boot volume capacity when you create an instance from the CLI

Run the ibmcloud is instance-create command and specify a boot volume capacity in GBs.

The following example creates an instance with a boot volume of 190 GB.

ibmcloud is instance create vsi-1 vpc-1 us-south-1 bx2-2x8  subnet-1 --image ibm-ubuntu-20-04-3-minimal-amd64-1 --boot-volume '{"name": "my-boot-vol-1", "volume": {"capacity": 190, "profile": {"name": "general-purpose"}}}'

Creating instance cli-vsi-1 under account VPC1 as user myuser@mycompany.com...

ID                                    0716_84f99419-554d-4c05-bea0-7034d1c40ed3
Name                                  vsi-1
CRN                                   crn:v1:bluemix:public:is:us-south-1:a/efe5afc483594adaa8325e2b4d1290df::instance:0716_84f99419-554d-4c05-bea0-7034d1c40ed3
Status                                pending
Availability policy on host failure   restart
Startable                             true
Profile                               bx2-2x8
Architecture                          amd64
vCPU Manufacturer                     Intel
vCPUs                                 2
Memory(GiB)                           8
Bandwidth(Mbps)                       4000
Volume bandwidth(Mbps)                1000
Network bandwidth(Mbps)               3000
Metadata service enabled              false
Image                                 ID                                          Name
                                      9f6b534b-6061-40f4-ac42-5aba4dd0da7f         ubuntu-20-04-3-minimal-amd64-1

VPC                                   ID                                          Name
                                      r006-42ebadb6-65f8-4b2f-923b-50b0e44670df   vpc-1

Zone                                  us-south-1
Resource group                        ID                                 Name
                                      11caaa983d9c4beb82690daab08717e9   Default

Created                               2022-02-24T16:43:47+05:30
Boot volume                           ID   Name           Attachment ID                               Attachment name
                                      -    PROVISIONING   0716-ee0ca315-7a21-42e2-99f7-b68377bbffe0   my-boot-vol1

You can also specify a larger boot volume capacity when you create an instance template from an image or snapshot. See the following example.

ibmcloud is instance template create tpl-1 vpc-1 us-south-1 bx2-2x8  cli-subnet-1 --image ubuntu-20-04-3-minimal-amd64-1 --boot-volume '{"name": "my-boot-vol1", "volume": {"capacity": 190, "profile": {"name": "general-purpose"}}}'

For more information about creating virtual server instances from the CLI, see Creating virtual server instances from the CLI. For more information about the commands that are used for increasing boot volume size, see the VPC CLI reference.

Increasing the capacity of an existing boot volume from the CLI

From the CLI, locate the boot volume that you want to expand. You can use the ibmcloud is volumes command filter the results by specifying the resource group. Also, if you know the name or ID of the instance, you can view instance details and get information about the boot volume.

After you located the volume, use the volume-update command and provide the ID or name of the boot volume. Use the --capacity parameter to indicate the new size of the boot volume in GBs.

For example, this example increases the capacity of my-boot-vol1 to 200 GB. The existing capacity displays as the boot volume capacity is being expanded. Run the ibmcloud is volume command and specify the volume name to see the new capacity.

ibmcloud is volume update my-boot-vol-1 --capacity 200
Updating volume my-boot-vol1 under account VPC1 as user myuser@mycompany.com...

ID                                     9d60ba27-170c-4e2a-9bf6-6dbb11f95c38
Name                                   my-boot-vol1
CRN                                    crn:v1:bluemix:public:is:us-south-1:a/efe5afc483594adaa8325e2b4d1290df::volume:9d60ba27-170c-4e2a-9bf6-6dbb11f95c38
Status                                 updating
Capacity                               190
IOPS                                   3000
Bandwidth(Mbps)                        393
Profile                                general-purpose
Encryption key                         -
Encryption                             provider_managed
Resource group                         Default
Created                                2022-02-24T16:43:47+05:30
Zone                                   us-south-1
Volume Attachment Instance Reference   Attachment type   Instance ID                                 Instance name   Auto delete   Attachment ID                               Attachment name
                                       boot              0716_84f99419-554d-4c05-bea0-7034d1c40ed3   vsi-1           true          0716-ee0ca315-7a21-42e2-99f7-b68377bbffe0   boot-vol-name

Operating system                       ubuntu-20-04-amd64
Source image                           ID                                          Name
                                       9f6b534b-6061-40f4-ac42-5aba4dd0da7f        ubuntu-20-04-3-minimal-amd64-1

Active                                 true
Busy                                   false
Tags                                   -

Increase boot volume capacity when you create an instance with the API

When you create an instance by making a POST \instances request, you can specify larger boot volume capacity for any of these contexts: when you create the instance from an image, a source boot volume, or an instance template. Specify a boot volume name and capacity in the boot-volume-attachment property. The capacity for the boot volume must be at least the image's minimum provisioned size, which is the default if you don't specify capacity.

The following example creates a virtual server instance from an image, with a boot volume that has 250 GB capacity.

curl -X POST "$vpc_api_endpoint/v1/instances?version=2022-02-01&generation=2"\
-H "Authorization: $iam_token"\
-d '{
      "boot_volume_attachment": {
         "volume": {
           "capacity": 250",
           "encryption_key": {
             "crn": "crn:[...]"
           },
           "name": "my-boot-volume",
           "profile": {
            "name": "general-purpose"
           }
         }
       },
      "image": {
          "id": "9aaf3bcb-dcd7-4de7-bb60-24e39ff9d366"
       },
       .
       .
       .
   }'

For more information, see Create an instance in the VPC API reference.

Increasing the capacity of an existing boot volume with the API

With the API, locate the boot volume that you want to expand by making a GET \volumes call. Then, make a PATCH \volumes call with the ID of the boot volume and specify a new value for capacity.

For example, this call increases the capacity of a boot volume to 250 GB.

curl -X PATCH "$vpc_api_endpoint/v1/volumes/$volume_id/?version=2022-02-12&generation=2"\
-H "Authorization: $iam_token" \
-d '{
      "capacity": 250,
   }'