After creating your instance, you will most likely want to create and attach a storage volume to store all your data on. We also encourage running all your analyses on the storage volume, so that you are not using up your root volume space on your instance.

Create and attach a volume

1. Log in to the Nimbus dashboard.

2. Navigate to Volumes > Volumes, then click the + Create Volume button.

   Note
   You may see an existing volume already there, with a name like 91bd1e23-ce06-41e0-aeb5-41382df48170. It is most likely the root volume for your instance, and you can ignore it.

   
   

3. On the Create Volume dialog window, enter a volume name and choose a size of your choice in gigabytes, then click the Create Volume button. 
4. On the Volumes page, click the drop-down arrow next to Edit Volume and select Manage Attachments.
   
   
5. Select the instance you want to attach this volume to.
   
6. Click the Attach Volume button.
   

Format and mount a filesystem

Once you have attached the volume as above, confirm that the volume is properly attached.

1. Use ssh to log in to your instance from a terminal.

2. Check that you have properly attached the volume:

   Code Block
   $ sudo fdisk -l /dev/vdc

   
   

   You should see this returned:

   Code Block
   Disk /dev/vdc: 20 GiB, 21474836480 bytes, 41943040 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

   
   

3. (Only new volumes) Format the volume. WARNING:

   Note
   Do this step only for new volumes. Do NOT do this step for existing volumes, as it will wipe

   out the volume:

   any existing data on it.

   
   

   Code Block
   $ sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/vdc

   
   

4. Mount the volume to a new directory called /data:

   Code Block
   $ sudo mkdir /data $ sudo mount /dev/vdc /data

   
   

5. Check your new /data volume:

   Code Block
   $ df -h | grep vdc

   
   

6. Check that you can write files to your new volume:

   Code Block
   cd /data touch test.txt

   If you see an error about 'permission denied', you most likely need to change the owner of the volume to ububtu (that's you!) with the following command

   Code Block
   sudo chown ubuntu /data

   
   

You have now successfully attached and mounted your storage volume.

Resize a Volume

It is possible to resize an existing storage volume to make it larger, if additional space is required in an instance. This option is dependent on a few things:

• You need to have sufficient volume storage quota in your project. Go to the "Overview" page on the Nimbus dashboard to see how much volume storage is available.
• You cannot resize a root volume of an instance (the volume mounted as /dev/vda1 inside the instance). If you require a larger root volume, your only option is to delete the instance and re-create it with a larger root volume on the "Source" section during instance creation.
• You cannot shrink an existing volume. The new volume size must be larger than the old size.

Provided it meets all these requirements, you can resize a volume by the following steps:

1. Log on to the instance, and make sure that any file systems on that volume are unmounted (use "umount" if it is mounted):

   Code Block
   $ df -h $ sudo umount /data

   
   

2. Leaving your instance login active, log on to the Nimbus dashboard, go to the "Volumes" page, and select "Manage Attachments" from the drop-down menu to the right of the volume
3. Click on "Detach Volume", and confirm
4. Once detached, select "Extend Volume" from the drop-down menu to the right of the volume
   
5. Enter the new size in GB (it must be larger than the current size), then click on "Extend Volume"
   
6. To re-attach the volume, select "Manage Attachments" from the drop-down menu to the right of the volume
   
7. Select the instance you want to attach it to, make a note of the value of the "Device Name" field (usually /dev/vdc), then click on "Attach Volume"
   

8. Go back to your active instance login from step 2, and make sure that the operating system can see the attached volume:
   

   Code Block
   $ sudo fdisk -l /dev/vdc

   
   

9. Run a file system check on the patition first (assuming that the partition is /dev/vdc, fdisk will tell you if the partition has a different name like /dev/vdc1):
   

   Code Block
   $ sudo e2fsck -f /dev/vdc

   
   

10. Resize the partition to use the additional space added to the volume:
    

    Code Block
    $ sudo resize2fs /dev/vdc

    
    

11. You can now mount the volume again (replace /data with the mount point you normally use for the volume):
    

    Code Block
    $ sudo mount /dev/vdc /data