Increasing your VPS disk space

If you choose a larger VPS package, your VPS's virtual disk gets bigger. A disk can't shrink, so you can't switch to a package with less storage. Whether you can use the extra space right away depends on how your VPS was installed.

VPS installed via the VPS screen (the default)

After the package change, your VPS restarts automatically. During startup, the system (cloud-init) automatically expands the partition and the file system. You don't need to do anything. Check it with:

df -h /

Not seeing the new size yet? Restart your VPS once more via the VPS screen, or do it manually as described below.

Expanding manually

First create a snapshot so you can roll back if something goes wrong. Then log in as root.

1. View the layout with lsblk. Your disk is usually called sda; find the partition that / is on, for example sda1.
2. Expand that partition with growpart /dev/sda 1 (the number is the partition number). Is growpart missing? Install it with apt install -y cloud-guest-utils or dnf install -y cloud-utils-growpart.
3. Expand the file system. Use df -T / to see which type it is:
   • ext4: resize2fs /dev/sda1
   • xfs: xfs_growfs /
4. Check with df -h /.

Self-installed with LVM (for example an older AlmaLinux VPS)

If lsblk shows a line of type lvm under the partition, do the following after step 2:

1. pvresize /dev/sda2 (the partition with LVM)
2. lvextend -r -l +100%FREE /dev/mapper/almalinux-root (you can find the name in df -h /; the -r option expands the file system at the same time)

Can't figure it out? Create a ticket and include the output of lsblk and df -h, and we'll take a look with you.

Detailed explanation with screenshots: A larger package and more disk space in the VPS manual.

Want to learn more? Take the free course VPS and Linux server management, lesson 1.4 Looking around on the command line.