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Let’s take a look at how our Support Team help a customer  deal with this linode query.

How to configure Linode block storage?

Block Storage is a scalable, high-speed, and fault tolerant storage service used to add additional storage to a Linode Compute Instance.

Today, let us see the steps followed by our Support techs to create a new Block Storage Volume, attach it to your Linode, create a filesystem, and mount your Volume.

Add a Volume from the Linode Detail Page

1. Firstly, log in to the Cloud Manager and click on the Linodes link in the sidebar.
2. Then, select the Linode to which you want to attach a Block Storage Volume. The detail page for the Linode will appear.
3. Next, navigate to the Storage tab and then click the Add a Volume button.
4. Complete the Create a Volume form.
   • Select Create and Attach Volume to create a new Volume. Otherwise select Attach Existing Volume to attach a Volume that’s already on your account and in the same data center as the Linode.
   • Label: A string up to 32 characters long and consisting only of ASCII characters a-z; 0-9.-_.
   • Size: The desired size for the new Volume. See the Limits and Considerations section for the minimum and maximum size.
   • Config: If the Linode has multiple Configuration Profiles, select which one the Block Storage Volume should assign to.
   • Tags: Optionally add or assign tags to help label and organize your services.
5. When finished, click Create Volume.
6. A Volume Configuration panel appears, which contains the instructions needed to start using the new Volume with your Linode.
7. Once created, the Volume is listed under the Volumes table.

Attach a Volume from Your Account’s Volume List

Follow these steps to attach an existing Block Storage Volume.

1. Firstly, log in to the Cloud Manager and click on the Volumes link in the sidebar.
2. Then, locate the desired Volume within the list, click the more options ellipsis dropdown menu, and select Attach.
3. Complete the Attach Volume form that appears.
   • Linode: Use the dropdown menu to select the Linode you’d like to use. The Volume will attach to this Linode.
   • Config: If the Linode has multiple Configuration Profiles, select which one the Block Storage Volume should be assigned to. This field will not display if the Linode has only a single profile.
4. Then, click the Save button to attach the Volume.
5. Finally, to start using the Volume on the Linode, additional internal configuration is required.

How to Detach a Block Storage Volume from a Linode?

Follow these steps to safely detach a Block Storage Volume from a Linode.

• Firstly, log in to the Cloud Manager and click on the Linodes link in the sidebar.
• Then, select the Linode that the Volume is currently attached to.
• It’s recommended to power off the Linode.

To do this, click Power Off on the top right of the Linode details page.

CautionIf a volume is currently mounted, detaching it while the Linode is powered on could cause data loss or an unexpected reboot.

You can unmount the volume for safe live-detaching using the umount command:umount /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-0Linode_Volume_BlockStorage1

To avoid additional issues with your Linode, remove the detached volume’s line from your /etc/fstab/ configuration:FILE_SYSTEM_PATH /mnt/BlockStorage1 ext4 defaults 0 2

• Navigate to the Storage tab.
• Then, locate the Volume you wish to detach within the Volumes list, click the more options ellipsis dropdown menu, and select Detach.
• A confirmation screen appears and explains that the Volume will be detached from the Linode. Click Detach to confirm.

After detaching it from a Linode, the Volume will still exist on your account.

It can view within the Volumes listing page in the Cloud Manager.

How to Delete a Block Storage Volume?

Follow these steps to delete a Block Storage Volume from the Cloud Manager.

1. Firstly, log in to the Cloud Manager.
2. If the Volume is attach to a Linode, power off that Linode and detach the Volume.
3. Next, click on the Volumes link in the sidebar.
4. Then, locate the desired Volume within the list, click the more options ellipsis dropdown menu, and select Delete.
5. In the configuration dialog, click Delete once again.

How to Resize a Block Storage Volume?

At any time after the Block Storage Volume has been created, it can be increased to a larger size.

1. Firstly, log in to the Cloud Manager.
2. If the Volume is attached to a Linode, power off that Linode.
3. Then, click on the Volumes link in the sidebar.
4. Locate the desired Volume within the list, click the more options ellipsis dropdown menu, and select Resize.
5. Enter the new Volume size. The minimum size is the current size of the Volume and maximum is 10,000 GB. Then click Submit.
6. Click Resize Volume to start the resize.
7. Next, reboot your Linode after the Volume is resized.
8. Once your Linode has fully restarted, you need to run the previously mentioned commands to resize your Linode’s Block Storage Volume
   1. Login to your Linode using SSH or Lish.
   2. Unmount the Volume:umount /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-0Linode_Volume_BlockStorage1
   3. Assuming you have an ext2, ext3, or ext4 partition, run a file system check:e2fsck -f /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-0Linode_Volume_BlockStorage1
   4. Then resize it to fill the new Volume size:resize2fs /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-0Linode_Volume_BlockStorage1
   5. Mount your Volume back onto the filesystem:mount /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-0Linode_Volume_BlockStorage1 /mnt/BlockStorage1

How to Transfer Block Storage Data Between Data Centers?

Block Storage Volumes cannot be directly migrated to a different data center.

These steps will outline how to transfer a Volume’s data to a different data center via the SCP tool.

1. Attach and mount your Block Storage Volume to a Linode, if you have not already.
2. Use the Secure Copy Protocol (SCP) to download your Volume’s data to the receiving computer or Linode.
3. Once your Block Storage Volume’s data has been copied, create a new Block Storage Volume in the desired data center and attach it to a Linode.
4. Use SCP to upload the data from the receiving computer or Linode to the new Block Storage Volume. The new Block Storage Volume must attach and mount to a Linode.

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Conclusion

Today, we saw steps followed by our Support Engineers to configure Linode block storage