Storage – Volumes

Volume lifecycle behavior

Storage volumes are managed independently from compute instances. This separation allows you to safely reuse volumes across instance restarts or replacements.

Key lifecycle characteristics:

• Deleting an instance does not delete attached volumes by default

• Volumes can be detached and reattached to other instances

• Volume data persists until the volume itself is explicitly deleted

For production workloads, it is strongly recommended to protect important volumes using Terraform lifecycle rules.

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Safe updates and lifecycle controls

Some operations can permanently affect stored data. To avoid accidental data loss, use Terraform lifecycle settings:

resource "verda_volume" "data" {
  name    = "training-data"
  size_gb = 500

  lifecycle {
    prevent_destroy = true
  }
}

This prevents the volume from being destroyed unless the protection is explicitly removed.

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Resizing volumes

• Increasing the volume size is typically supported and does not require recreation

• Decreasing the volume size usually requires deleting and recreating the volume

• After resizing, filesystem expansion may be required inside the instance

Always verify resizing behavior in a non-production environment first.

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Importing existing volumes

If a volume already exists in Verda, you can bring it under Terraform management:

terraform import verda_volume.data <volume-id>

After importing:

1. Run terraform plan

2. Adjust your configuration until the plan shows no changes

This ensures Terraform accurately reflects the existing resource state.

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Troubleshooting

Volume not visible inside the instance

• Confirm the volume is attached to the instance

• Verify the device is detected by the operating system

• Ensure the volume is mounted to a directory

Data not persisting after instance recreation

• Ensure the volume itself was not deleted

• Confirm the same volume ID is reattached to the new instance

Unexpected volume recreation

• Reducing size_gb will force recreation

• Removing lifecycle protection may allow deletion

• Review terraform plan output carefully before applying

Permission or mount errors

• Check filesystem formatting

• Verify mount options and ownership

• Ensure startup scripts handle mounting correctly

For automated mounting and initialization, see Compute – Startup Scripts.

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Next steps

Once volumes are configured, you can:

• Attach them to compute instances

• Automate mounting using startup scripts

• Use them for datasets, checkpoints, logs, and other stateful workloads