When extending the disk space of your VPS, you will first need to add this extra disk space to a partition before your OS can use this. When upgrading your VPS or when ordering a SSD AddOn this extra space will therefore not be immediately visible in your operating system or web control panel. In this tutorial, you'll expand the disk space using ‘GParted’. GParted is the graphical version of 'parted' and while both have the same functionality, GParted's GUI is a little easier.
The following steps work for any Linux-based operating system, regardless of whether or not you use LVM.
- Always make a snapshot before expanding a partition! The process of expanding a partition is error-sensitive and it's important that you can always fall back on a snapshot to restore the state of your VPS.
- In addition, your VPS is unavailable when you use rescue mode. Therefore, do these actions at a time when you do not actively use (the services) your VPS.
- Reducing the space of the root partition using GParted is strongly inadvised. The chances are high that you create data corruption and your VPS will no longer start.
Step 1
Start the 'Linux Rescue Mode'. You can do this by first opening the console in the control panel by clicking the pop-out icon in the bottom left.
In the top menu, select ‘Boot in rescue’.
Next, select ‘Boot image’ to automatically start RescueLinux. Starting rescue mode takes a minute or two.
Step 2
When the rescue mode is fully started and you see a command prompt, run the 'startx' command to start the graphical interface of Rescue Linux.
startx
Step 3
Click the ‘X’ start menu button in the bottom left and select ‘System’ > ‘GParted’.
Step 4
Once started, you'll see the current partitions in GParted. If you have just increased your disk space, you'll see a number of GiB of 'unallocated' space here (1). If this unallocated space comes directly after the partition you want to enlarge (/dev/vda3 in this example), right-click that partition (2) and choose ‘Resize / Move’ (3).
Not sure what partition to increase? Usually it'll be the existing one that already is the largest one in GiB.
Step 5
Simply move the slider all the way to the right to assign all available new space to the existing partition.
Step 6
Click on the green checkmark to make all changes permanent.
You'll get a warning, because reducing/moving partitions can cause problems. Click ‘Apply’ to confirm that everything is correctly adjusted.
Next, the changes will be processed, which takes about a minute.
Step 7
Finally, restart your VPS using the 'restart' button in the top of the window.
Linux Rescue uses a ‘network’ boot; If you'd instead reboot using a reboot command or through the start button, you'll arrive in a network boot window and will see the installation screen of your operating system.
When you restart your VPS via Restart on the console menu and log in to your OS, you can see the new partition(s) in Linux via a command such as:
df -hFor Windows, simply open explorer and check your C:\ drive's new disk space.