Create a subscription or pay-as-you-go data disk to increase the storage space of an ECS instance - Elastic Compute Service

Create a subscription or pay-as-you-go data disk and attach it to an ECS instance for additional storage.

Limitations

Limitations vary by billing method.

Billing method	Description
Pay-as-you-go cloud disk	See Pay-as-you-go.
Subscription cloud disk	Must be attached to a subscription instance during creation. Cannot be created independently. A subscription cloud disk expires and is released with its attached instance. To release only the disk, convert it to pay-as-you-go first, then detach and release it.

Multiple block storage devices cannot be merged into one volume. Plan the number and capacity of your devices in advance.
System disks can only be created with an instance, not separately.

Procedure

Note

You can also create a data disk from an instance details page (Block Storage tab > Create a disk), or during instance creation (click Add data disk in the Data Disk area). The following steps use the cloud disk purchase page as an example.

Go to ECS console - Block Storage - Disks.
Click Create a disk.

On the Create Cloud Disk page, configure the following parameters.

Parameter	Description
Attach	Whether to attach the cloud disk to an instance after creation. Not Attach: Creates a pay-as-you-go cloud disk without attaching it to an instance. Except for zone-redundant ESSDs, a cloud disk must be in the same zone as the ECS instance. Select the Region and Zone carefully. Attach to ECS Instance: Creates and attaches a cloud disk to a specified ECS instance in the same zone. Zone-redundant ESSDs can be attached to instances in any supported zone within the same region. See Limitations. You must select the target region and ECS instance.
Billing Method	The billing method of the cloud disk. Pay-as-you-go: Attachable to subscription or pay-as-you-go instances. Subscription: Must be attached to a subscription instance.
Cloud Disk	Select a disk category and capacity. Additional settings: Performance: Available only for ESSDs. The performance level depends on ESSD capacity. See ESSDs. Create disk from snapshot: Creates a disk with data from a selected snapshot. See Create a data disk from a snapshot. Multi-attach: Attaches a single ESSD to multiple instances in the same zone. See Enable the multi-attach feature. Encrypt: Automatically encrypts data on the cloud disk. See Encryption. Provisioned Performance Fee and Enable Burst: Required for ESSD AutoPL disks. Configure provisioned performance and burst settings. See ESSD AutoPL. Release settings: If you select Attach to ECS Instance with Pay-as-you-go billing, you can specify whether the disk and its automatic snapshots are released with the instance.

Confirm the configuration and cost, then complete the purchase.

After creation, the disk appears on the Cloud Disks page. Initialize the disk before use.

Next steps

Important

You must attach and initialize the disk before use.

Scenario

Next step

You selected Attach to ECS Instance during creation.

Initialize the data disk based on the operating system:

Linux: Initialize a data disk (Linux).
Windows: Initialize a data disk (Windows).

You selected Not Attach during creation.

Attach, then initialize the data disk:

Step 1: Attach a data disk.

Step 2: Initialize the data disk.

Linux: Initialize a data disk (Linux).
Windows: Initialize a data disk (Windows).