Adding Self-Volume Attachments
- Lauren
- Felipe Leefu Huang Lin
Add up to 500 GB of additional storage space to your virtual machine to boost its working storage
Additional Storage
Researcher Desktops and Research Servers are launched with a default storage of 200 GB. Depending on how you use your virtual machine though, this might not be enough working storage to suit your needs. So when you need more working storage, you can use the self-volume attachment feature to create more space on your machine.
Note: The additional storage is added as an extra volume, and not as an extension to your existing main volume.
Important: Just like your main volume, this additional storage space is NOT designed for storing your research data. It does NOT have the same protections as our purpose built research data storage solutions. It is ONLY for increasing your virtual machine’s working storage, specifically to improve its efficiency in processing, computing and analysing your research data (which should be stored elsewhere).
If you’re looking for space to store your research data, please instead see our data storage solutions in RCP: Mediaflux, DaRIS, Object Storage (S3-compatible) and Attica.
A self serve max of 500 GB applies:
per a single VM (you can self serve up to 500 GB for a given Researcher Desktop or Research Server)
per an Activity (you can self serve up to combined total of 500 GB across different VMs inside a common Activity)
per your Personal Resources (you can self serve up to combined total of 500 GB across different Researcher Desktops, Linux or Windows, in your Personal Resources)
Adding
To add an extra volume:
Go to the Manage page for your virtual machine in RCP.
Click Add Volume.
Fill out the resultant form (It will ask you for a Name, Justification and Size).
Click Add Volume to submit the form.
When the volume has been successfully attached, you’ll be able to find its access directory on your virtual machine’s Manage page in RCP, so you can access and start using it:
Accessing
On a Linux VM
Using Linux’s GUI interface:
Click Files on the left side menu.
Select + Other locations from the side menu in the opened window.
Click Computer on the next window.
There will be a directory with your nominated storage name in the next window.
You can also access it via terminal through the path: "/your_storage_name".
Important: Renaming the directory/mountpoint from within the vm will not be reflected on the table and may cause sync issues during unshelving auto reattaching process.
On a Windows VM
Open File Explorer and click This PC.
Your additional storage will be located under Devices and drives with your nominated storage name.
Deleting
If you no longer need the additional volume you can delete it:
Go to Manage page for your virtual machine in RCP.
On the My Additional Storage Volumes table, under Actions, click Delete for the additional storage that you would like to remove.
Select the volume you wish to delete from the drop-down menu in the resultant pop-up window.
Formatting
Manually formatting your additional storage is NOT recommended as the storage might not work properly with the RCP self-volume system, depending on the format configuration you choose. If you’re after a quick way to reset your additional storage, the best method is to delete it and create a new one.