Help Center/ GaussDB/ User Guide/ Instance Modifications/ Scaling Up Storage Space/ Configuring Storage Autoscaling for an Instance
Updated on 2025-08-11 GMT+08:00
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Configuring Storage Autoscaling for an Instance

Scenarios

You can enable autoscaling for a GaussDB instance so that its storage can be automatically scaled up when the disk usage reaches the specified threshold.

Precautions

  • Autoscaling is unavailable for distributed instances using combined deployment.
  • All nodes in the target instance must be in an available state.
  • Storage autoscaling is mutually exclusive with the following operations: manually scaling up storage space, adding nodes, changing the disk type, deleting an instance, checking snapshots, updating agents, and storage autoscaling. That is, storage autoscaling cannot be performed when any of the preceding operations is ongoing, even if the autoscaling policy is configured.
  • Autoscaling for centralized instances is at the instance level.
  • Autoscaling for distributed instances is at the shard level.
  • If the storage sizes of shards in a distributed instance are different after the scale-up, no shards can be added or deleted until all shards are scaled to the same size.
  • During storage autoscaling, the storage space is increased in increments of 40 GB.
    • If the space to increase exceeds the upper limit you have specified, only the space size equal to the upper limit will be increased.
    • If the space to increase exceeds the upper limit specified by the system, only the space size equal to the upper limit will be increased.
  • An alarm will be generated when autoscaling fails. This alarm will be automatically cleared when the disk usage is lower than the specified threshold.
  • If a yearly/monthly DB instance has pending orders, autoscaling will fail.
  • If your account balance is insufficient, autoscaling will fail.

Billing

Billing Mode

Impact on Fees

Yearly/Monthly

After storage is scaled up, you will be billed for the increased storage based on the time remaining in the requested period of your instance.

You need to pay for the difference in price based on the remaining period.

Example (The prices below are for reference only. The actual prices are displayed on the console.)

Suppose you purchased a one-month, enterprise-edition distributed instance of V2.0-8.210 (configurations: 3 shards, 3 replicas, 3 CNs; instance specifications: dedicated, 8 vCPUs | 64 GB; storage: ultra-high I/O, 120 GB) on June 1, 2025. The instance price was $19,752 USD/month.

On June 15, 2025, 40 GB of storage was added to a shard of the instance as the instance's storage usage reached the predefined threshold. The storage was priced at $24 USD/month.

Price difference = Fee of the increased storage x Remaining period

The remaining period in the formula is the number of remaining days in each calendar month divided by the maximum number of days in the calendar month.

In this example, the remaining period and price difference are calculated as follows:

  • Remaining period = 15 (Remaining days in June)/30 (Maximum number of days in June) = 0.5
  • Price difference = 24 x 0.5 = $12 USD

Pay-per-use

Increased storage is billed by the hour.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the management console.
  2. Click in the upper left corner and select a region and project.
  3. Click in the upper left corner of the page and choose Databases > GaussDB.
  4. On the Instances page, click the name of the target instance to go to the Basic Information page.
  5. In the Storage & Backup area, click Auto-Scale.

    Figure 1 Enabling autoscaling

  6. In the displayed Configure Storage Autoscaling dialog box, set the following parameters:

    Figure 2 Configuring autoscaling

    Table 1 Parameters

    Parameter

    Description

    Autoscaling

    Specifies whether to enable automatic scale-out. By default, automatic scale-out is disabled.

    Trigger If Available Storage Drops To

    The storage will be automatically scaled up if the available storage drops to or below the threshold specified by this parameter. The default value is 20%. The value can be 20%, 25%, or 50%.

    Autoscaling Limit

    Upper limit of the storage space in GB that can be automatically scaled to. The value of this parameter must be greater than the current storage of the instance.

    Value range:

    • Centralized instances: [Current storage + 40 GB, 24,000 GB]
    • Distributed instances: [Current storage + 40 GB, 24,000 GB x Number of shards]

    Scaling Method

    The value can be By percentage or By fixed amount.

    • If By percentage is selected, the storage space to be expanded increases each time.
    • If By fixed amount is selected, a fixed volume of storage will be expanded each time.

    Evaluate your workloads and costs and select a method as required.

    Scale Up By

    Size of the storage space to be expanded each time, which depends on the selected scaling method. Storage can be scaled by percentage or a fixed amount.

    • If By percentage is selected for Scaling Method, the default value of this parameter is 20%, and the value range is [1%, 100%]. If the available storage drops to or below the specified threshold, the storage will be automatically scaled up by a percentage specified by this parameter (in increments of 40 GB). For example, if the current storage space of an instance is 40 GB and this parameter is set to 20%, the volume to be expanded is 8 GB, which will be rounded up to 40 GB.
    • If By fixed amount is selected for Scaling Method, the default value of this parameter is 40 GB, and the value range is [40 GB, Current storage space + 40 GB]. If the available storage drops to or below the specified threshold, the storage will be automatically scaled up by a fixed amount specified by this parameter.

  7. Click OK.
Parent Topic: Scaling Up Storage Space