Creating a New Volume

Creating a New Volume You can add more data disk volumes to a guest VM at any time, up to the limits of your storage capacity. Both &PRODUCT; administrators and users can add volumes to VM instances. When you create a new volume, it is stored as an entity in &PRODUCT;, but the actual storage resources are not allocated on the physical storage device until you attach the volume. This optimization allows the &PRODUCT; to provision the volume nearest to the guest that will use it when the first attachment is made.

Using Local Storage for Data Volumes You can create data volumes on local storage (supported with XenServer, KVM, and VMware). The data volume is placed on the same host as the VM instance that is attached to the data volume. These local data volumes can be attached to virtual machines, detached, re-attached, and deleted just as with the other types of data volume. Local storage is ideal for scenarios where persistence of data volumes and HA is not required. Some of the benefits include reduced disk I/O latency and cost reduction from using inexpensive local disks. In order for local volumes to be used, the feature must be enabled for the zone. You can create a data disk offering for local storage. When a user creates a new VM, they can select this disk offering in order to cause the data disk volume to be placed in local storage. You can not migrate a VM that has a volume in local storage to a different host, nor migrate the volume itself away to a different host. If you want to put a host into maintenance mode, you must first stop any VMs with local data volumes on that host.

To Create a New Volume Log in to the &PRODUCT; UI as a user or admin. In the left navigation bar, click Storage. In Select View, choose Volumes. To create a new volume, click Add Volume, provide the following details, and click OK. Name. Give the volume a unique name so you can find it later. Availability Zone. Where do you want the storage to reside? This should be close to the VM that will use the volume. Disk Offering. Choose the characteristics of the storage. The new volume appears in the list of volumes with the state “Allocated.” The volume data is stored in &PRODUCT;, but the volume is not yet ready for use To start using the volume, continue to Attaching a Volume