Updated on 2023-08-04 GMT+08:00

Introduction to Expansion Scenarios

What Is Capacity Expansion?

If the capacity of an existing disk is insufficient, you can expand the disk capacity.

Both system disks and data disks can be expanded. A system disk can be expanded to up to 1 TB, and a data disk to 32 TB. Currently, disk capacities can be expanded only. Capacity reduction is not supported.

How to Expand the Disk Capacity?

You can expand the disk capacities when the disks are in the In-use or Available state.
  • Expanding an In-use disk means that the to-be-expanded disk has been attached to a server. Currently, only some server OSs support the expansion of In-use disks. Therefore, ensure that your server OS meets the requirements before you expand an In-use disk. For details, see Expanding an In-use Disk.
  • Expanding an Available disk means that the to-be-expanded disk has not been attached to any server. For details, see Expanding an Available Disk.
After the disk capacity has been expanded, the additional disk space needs to be allocated to an existing partition or a new partition.
When a disk has been put to use, you must check the disk partition style before expanding its capacity. The details are as follows:
  • If the MBR partition style is used, the maximum disk capacity supported is 2 TB (2048 GB), and the disk space exceeding 2 TB cannot be allocated and used.
  • If the GPT partition style is used, the maximum disk capacity supported is 18 EB (19327352832 GB). A data disk supports up to 32 TB (32768 GB) so that you can expand the capacity of a data disk to up to 32 TB when GPT is used.

If the in-use partition style is MBR and the disk capacity needs to be expanded to over 2 TB, change the partition style from MBR to GPT. Ensure that the disk data has been backed up before changing the partition style because services will be interrupted and data on the disk will be cleared during this change.