How to Reduce the Size of a Virtual Disk

In this tutorial, you will learn how to reduce the size of a virtual disk. Simply create a new disk with the desired size, prepare the server with the boot ISO, clone the old disk and set the new disk as the root.

One of the big advantages of cloud computing is the ability to increase and decrease resources in accordance with your needs. However, reducing the size of a virtual disk is not so easy. This tutorial explains how to reduce the size of an existing disk.

How to reduce the size of a virtual disk?

Before you begin:

To successfully complete this tutorial, you will need:

To be registered with an organisation on the Jotelulu platform and have signed in using your username and password.
To have subscribed to either a Server or Remote Desktop service and have a server with a disk that you wish to reduce.

Step 1. Deploy a new disk with a new size.

To reduce the size of a system disk on an existing server, you will need to deploy a new disk with the desired size and then swap it for the old disk. To start this process, open the main dashboard on the Jotelulu platform and click on the top of the Servers card (1).

Step 1. Open the Servers subscription page from the main dashboard

Next, click on Servers in the left-hand menu (2).

Step 1. Open the Servers section to select the server that you wish to work on.

Find the server that you wish to work on (in this example, SRV-TEPA00-788), click on the three dots to the right and select Edit (3).

Step 1. Select the server and click on Edit

Once in the server management panel, scroll down to the Disks section. Here, you will see the size of the current root disk (in this example, 100 GB). To reduce the disk size on this server to, for example, 60 GB, you will need to first Add a New Disk (4).

Step 1. Add a new virtual disk to the selected server

On the next screen, you will first need to connect the new disk to the server (5) [in this example, SRV-TEPA00-788]. Then, select the new disk size (6) [in this example, 60GB] and click on Create Disk (7).

Step 1. Connect the disk to the server, set the disk size and click on Create Disk

The platform will notify you that the disk has been created successfully and the new disk will now appear (8) in the Disks section of the server management panel, alongside the original root disk.

Step 1. The new virtual disk will appear on the server management page

Step 2. Preparing the server with the boot ISO

Once the new disk has been created, you will need to prepare the server so that the old disk can be cloned. To do this, you will need to use a system boot ISO that runs an application (AOMEI Backuper Linux) to clone the disk

In the server management panel, click on the selector in the upper right corner, add ISO “AOMEI Backuper Linux” (9) and click on Confirm (10). On future server startups, it will boot from the ISO and run the cloning programme automatically.

Step 2. Add the boot ISO to your server and confirm

Once you have added the ISO, the “Boot from ISO” icon will appear in green. Click on this icon (11) to boot the server from the ISO and click on Confirm (12). The server will restart once you click on Confirm.

Step 2. Boot the server from the ISO

The server will now boot from the selected ISO and the platform will notify you when the process has been completed successfully (13).

Step 2. Confirm that the server has successfully booted from the ISO

Step 3. Clone the disk.

Once all these preparation steps have been completed, you are now ready to clone the virtual disk. First, an administrator will need to connect to the server using the command prompt (14), available from the server management panel. By clicking on the command prompt button, a floating window will appear providing access to the server.

NOTE: For this process, it is not possible to connect via RDP. You must use the command prompt.

Step 3. Connect to the server using the command prompt

Upon accessing the server through the command prompt, you will be presented with the application menu. To begin cloning the old disk to the new smaller one, click on the Clone tab (15) and select System Clone (16).

Step 3. Begin the cloning process

Choose the new disk as the new location for the system (17), thereby beginning the cloning process (18).

Step 3. Choose the new disk as the location of the system and proceed with the cloning process

The application will display the progress of the cloning process until finished.

Step 3. System Clone in progress

Eventually, the process will finish, and you will need to click on the Finish button (19).

Step 3. Finish the cloning process

At this point, you will need to stop the server (20), and you will need to do this from the server management panel on the Jotelulu platform.

Step 3. Stop the server from the server management panel on the Jotelulu platform

Step 4. Set the new disk as the root.

Once the server has been stopped, you should set the new disk as the root. To do this, you will first need to disconnect the ISO (21).

Step 4. Disconnect the ISO from the server

Next, you will need to access the Disks section (22) and disconnect both of them, clicking on the three dots to the right of each disk and clicking Disconnect (23).

Step 4. Disconnect the two virtual disks from the server

Once both disks are disconnected, you will need to connect the new smaller disk as the root disk (24).

Step 4. Connect the new disk to the server

On the Connect Volume page, you will be asked whether you wish to set the disk as the root. Choose Yes (25).

Step 4. Set the new smaller disk as the root disk

Once you have done this, return to the server management panel and start the server (26).

Step 4. Start the server after setting the new disk as the root disk

Once the server has been started, click on the server to check that the disk size reduction has been successful.

Summary and next steps

The process to reduce the size of a virtual disk is more complex than increasing it. In this tutorial, you have learnt how to reduce the size of a disk on your server.

Now that you have completed this tutorial, you might want to find out more about other processes related to managing servers on the platform. If so, the following tutorials may be of interest to you:

We hope that this tutorial has been useful for you. If you need any more information, please write to us at platform@jotelulu.com and we will be happy to help.

How to Reduce the Size of a Virtual Disk

Manuel Pérez Gómez-Miranda