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How Do I Add Additional Disks to My Spinup Server?

How Do I Add Additional Disks to My Spinup Server?

You can attach additional storage disks (EBS volumes) to any server in your Spinup Space. These can be used for expanding file storage, separating data, or organizing workloads.

This guide explains how to attach and initialize a new disk for both Linux and Windows servers.

Step 1: Add a Disk in the Spinup Console

  1. Log in to Spinup
    Visit https://spinup.internal.yale.edu and sign in with your Yale NetID.

  2. Navigate to Your Server
    Select your Space, then click on the server where you want to add a disk.

  3. Open the Disks Tab
    Click the Disks tab within the server view.

  4. Add a New Disk
    Click Add Disk, choose the desired size (e.g., 10 GB), and click Create.

Once added, the disk will automatically attach to your running server. It will appear as a new uninitialized device (e.g., /dev/nvme1n1 on Linux or a new volume in Disk Management on Windows).

Setting Up the Disk

For Linux

  1. SSH into the Server

ssh user@your-server-name

  1. Identify the New Disk

lsblk

Look for a device with no mountpoint (e.g., /dev/nvme1n1).

  1. Create a Filesystem

sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme1n1

  1. Create a Mount Point

sudo mkdir /mnt/data

  1. Mount the Disk

sudo mount /dev/nvme1n1 /mnt/data

  1. Make the Mount Persistent

echo "/dev/nvme1n1 /mnt/data ext4 defaults,nofail 0 2" | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

For Windows

  1. Connect to the Server
    Use RDP or a remote console to log into your Windows instance.

  2. Open Disk Management

    • Press Windows + X → Select Disk Management

  3. Initialize the Disk

    • When prompted, choose GPT (recommended) or MBR for partition style

    • If no prompt appears, right-click the new disk (listed as Offline or Unallocated) and choose Initialize Disk

  4. Create a New Volume

    • Right-click the unallocated space → New Simple Volume

    • Follow the wizard to assign a drive letter and format the volume (use NTFS)

    • You can optionally name the volume (e.g., "DataDisk")

  5. Verify the Drive Appears

    • It should now show up under This PC with the assigned drive letter.

For full reference, see AWS EBS Volume Usage Guide

Best Practices

  • Name and label volumes meaningfully (e.g., data, logs, backup)

  • Remove unused disks to avoid incurring unnecessary charges

  • For Linux, ensure /etc/fstab is updated for persistence

  • For Windows, consider setting the drive letter to a fixed value to avoid reassignment issues

Need Help?

Email: spinup@yale.edu
Slack: #spinup channel on the Yale workspace