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Moving a disk to a different availability zone

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Updated at October 30, 2024

A disk is created in a single availability zone. You can move it to a different zone using a snapshot or a special command in the management console or the CLI.

If a disk is attached to a VM, it will be moved during VM migration. You cannot migrate attached disks separately from their VMs.

Warning

To monitor the progress of migration and avoid possible issues during it, use disk snapshots or backups from Cloud Backup for migration. In this way, you yourself determine when to shut down your VM in the source availability zone and when to make it appear in the target availability zone. The VM in the source availability zone may continue to run until you make sure that the VM you created from a snapshot works properly in the new availability zone. For detailed recommendations, see Migrating resources to the ru-central1-d availability zone.

Currently, you can use the relocate command to migrate VMs and disks only to the ru-central1-d zone from any other zone.

Moving a disk by creating a snapshot

Prepare the disks

A disk snapshot only contains the data that had already been written to the disk when the snapshot was created. If the disk is attached to a running VM, the OS and app cache will not be included in the snapshot.

To ensure the integrity of the snapshot data:

  1. Stop all disk write operations in applications.

  2. Write the OS cache to the disk:

    sync

  3. Freeze the file system:

    sudo fsfreeze --freeze <mount_point>

    Where --freeze is the parameter to freeze the file system. Instead of <mount_point>, specify the folder the file system is connected to, e.g., /mnt/vdc2.

  4. Create a snapshot following the guide below.

  5. Unfreeze the file system:

    sudo fsfreeze --unfreeze <mount_point>

    Where --unfreeze is the parameter to unfreeze the file system. Instead of <mount_point>, specify the folder the file system is connected to, e.g., /mnt/vdc2.

  1. Stop the virtual machine (see Stop).
  2. Wait until the VM status changes to STOPPED.

Create snapshots

To create a disk snapshot:

  1. In the management console, select the folder where the disk is located.

  2. Select Compute Cloud.

  3. In the left-hand panel, select Disks.

  4. In the line of the disk, click and select Create snapshot.

  5. Enter a name for the snapshot. The naming requirements are as follows:

    • The name must be from 3 to 63 characters long.
    • It may contain lowercase Latin letters, numbers, and hyphens.
    • The first character must be a letter and the last character cannot be a hyphen.

  6. If necessary, enter a description of the snapshot.

  7. Click Create.

If you do not have the Yandex Cloud command line interface yet, install and initialize it.

The folder specified in the CLI profile is used by default. You can specify a different folder using the --folder-name or --folder-id parameter.

  1. View a description of the CLI create snapshot commands:

    yc compute snapshot create --help

  2. Select the disk to take a snapshot of. To get a list of disks in the default folder, run the command:

    yc compute disk list

    Result:

    +----------------------+--------------+-------------+-------------------+--------+----------------------+-----------------+-------------+
|          ID          |     NAME     |    SIZE     |       ZONE        | STATUS |     INSTANCE IDS     | PLACEMENT GROUP | DESCRIPTION |
+----------------------+--------------+-------------+-------------------+--------+----------------------+-----------------+-------------+
| a7lqgbt0bb9s******** | first-disk   | 20401094656 |   ru-central1-a   | READY  | a7lcvu28njbh******** |                 |             |
| a7lv5j5hm1p1******** | second-disk  | 21474836480 |   ru-central1-a   | READY  |                      |                 |             |
+----------------------+--------------+-------------+-------------------+--------+----------------------+-----------------+-------------+

  3. Create a snapshot in the default folder:

    yc compute snapshot create \
  --name first-snapshot \
  --description "my first snapshot via CLI" \
  --disk-id fhm4aq4hvq5g********

    As a result, a disk snapshot is created with the name first-snapshot and description my first snapshot via CLI.

    The snapshot naming requirements are as follows:

    • The name must be from 3 to 63 characters long.
    • It may contain lowercase Latin letters, numbers, and hyphens.
    • The first character must be a letter and the last character cannot be a hyphen.

If you don't have Terraform, install it and configure the Yandex Cloud provider.

  1. Describe the resource parameters in the yandex_compute_snapshot configuration file.

    Here is an example of the configuration file structure:

    resource "yandex_compute_snapshot" "snapshot-1" {
  name           = "disk-snapshot"
  source_disk_id = "<disk_ID>"
}

    For more information about resources you can create with Terraform, see the provider documentation.

  2. Make sure the configuration files are valid.

    1. In the command line, go to the directory where you created the configuration file.

    2. Run a check using this command:

      terraform plan

    If the configuration is described correctly, the terminal will display a list of created resources and their parameters. If the configuration contains any errors, Terraform will point them out.

  3. Deploy cloud resources.

    1. If the configuration does not contain any errors, run this command:

      terraform apply

    2. Confirm that you want to create the resources.

    All the resources you need will then be created in the specified folder. You can check the new resources and their configuration using the management console.

  1. Get the list of disks using the list REST API method for the Disk resource or the DiskService/List gRPC API call.
  2. Create a snapshot using the create REST API method for the Snapshot resource or the SnapshotService/Create gRPC API call.

Repeat the steps to create a snapshot of each disk.

Create a VM in a different availability zone with the disks from the snapshots

To create a VM in a different availability zone with the disks from the snapshots:

  1. In the management console, select the folder to create your VM in.

  2. In the list of services, select Compute Cloud.

  3. In the left-hand panel, select Virtual machines.

  4. Click Create virtual machine.

  5. Under Boot disk image:

    • Go to the Custom tab.
    • Click , and, in the window that opens, select Create new.
    • In the Contents field, select Snapshot and then select the disk snapshot you need from the list below. Use filters if you need to.
    • Enter a name for the new boot disk.
    • Select the disk type.
    • Specify the required disk and block size.
    • (Optional) Enable the Delete along with the virtual machine option in the Additional field if you need to automatically delete this disk when deleting the VM.
    • Click Add disk.

  6. Under Location, select an availability zone to place your VM in.

  7. Add a secondary disk:

    • Under Disks and file storages, click Add
    • In the window that opens, select Disk → Create new.
    • In the Contents field, select Snapshot.
    • Enter a name for the new disk.
    • Select the disk type.
    • Specify the required disk and block size.
    • (Optional) Enable the Delete along with the virtual machine option in the Additional field if you need to automatically delete this disk when deleting the VM.
    • Click Add disk.

  8. (Optional) To encrypt a boot disk or a secondary disk, under Disks and file storages, click to the right of the disk name and set encryption parameters for the disk:

    • Select Encrypted disk.
    • In the KMS key field, select the key to encrypt the disk with. To create a new key, click Create new key.
    • In the Service account field, select a service account with the kms.keys.encrypterDecrypter role for the specified key. To create a service account, click Create new account.

    The encryption feature in Compute Cloud is currently at the Preview stage. To access it, open the resource creation page and click Request access under Encryption or contact support.

    If you deactivate the key used to encrypt a disk or snapshot, access to the data will be suspended until you reactivate the key.

    Alert

    If you destroy the key or its version used to encrypt a disk or snapshot, access to the data will be irrevocably lost. Learn more in Destroying key versions.

  9. (Optional) Connect a file storage:

    • Under Disks and file storages, click Add.

      • In the window that opens, select File storage and select the storage you want to connect from the list.

        If you do not have any file storages, click Create file storage to create a new one.

      • Click Add file storage.

  10. Under Computing resources, select a preset configuration or create a new one. To create a configuration:

  11. Under Network settings:

    • In the Subnet field, enter the ID of a subnet in the new VM’s availability zone. Alternatively, you can select a cloud network from the list.

      • Each network must have at least one subnet. If there is no subnet, create one by selecting Create subnet.

      • If you do not have a network, click Create network to create one:

        • In the window that opens, enter the network name and select the folder to host the network.
        • (Optional) Select the Create subnets option to automatically create subnets in all availability zones.
        • Click Create network.

    • In the Public IP field, choose a method for assigning an IP address:

      • Auto: Assign a random IP address from the Yandex Cloud IP address pool. In this case, you can enable DDoS protection using the option below.
      • List: Select a public IP address from the list of previously reserved static addresses. For more information, see Converting a dynamic public IP address to static.
      • No address: Do not assign a public IP address.

    • Select the appropriate security groups. If you leave this field empty, the default security group will be assigned to the VM.

    • Expand the Additional section and select a method for internal IP address assignment in the Internal IPv4 address field:

      • Auto: Assign a random IP address from the pool of IP addresses available in the selected subnet.
      • List: Select a private IP address from the list of previously reserved IP addresses. Click Reserve to reserve a private IP address in the selected subnet if needed.
      • Enable the DDoS protection option, if needed. The option is available if you previously selected the automatic IP assignment method in the public address settings.

    • (Optional) Create records for the VM in the DNS zone:

      • Expand the DNS settings for internal addresses section and click Add record.
      • Specify the zone, FQDN, and TTL for the record. When setting the FQDN, you can select Detect automatically for the zone.
        You can add multiple records to internal DNS zones. For more information, see Cloud DNS integration with Compute Cloud.
      • To create another record, click Add record.

    If you want to attach an additional network interface to your VM, click Add network interface and repeat the settings from this step for the new interface. You can add up to eight network interfaces to a single VM.

  12. Under Access, specify the data for access to the VM:

    • (Optional) Enable VM access via OS Login. The option is available for Linux images from Cloud Marketplace with OS Login in their names.

    • Enter the username into the Login field.

      Alert

      Do not use root or other usernames reserved by the OS. To perform operations requiring superuser permissions, use the sudo command.

    • In the SSH key field, paste the contents of the public key file. You need to create a key pair for the SSH connection yourself. To learn how, see Connecting to a VM via SSH.

    If you want to add several users with SSH keys to the VM at the same time, specify these users' data under Metadata. You can also use metadata to install additional software on a VM when creating it.

    In public Linux images provided by Yandex Cloud, the functionality of connecting over SSH using login and password is disabled by default.

  13. Under General information, specify the VM name:

    • The name must be from 3 to 63 characters long.
    • It may contain lowercase Latin letters, numbers, and hyphens.
    • The first character must be a letter and the last character cannot be a hyphen.

    Note

    The VM name is used to generate an internal FQDN only once: when creating a VM. If the internal FQDN is important to you, choose an appropriate name for the VM at the creation stage.

  14. Under Additional:

  15. Click Create VM.

You will see the new VM in the list. Every new VM gets an IP address and host name (FQDN).

If you do not have the Yandex Cloud command line interface yet, install and initialize it.

The folder specified in the CLI profile is used by default. You can specify a different folder using the --folder-name or --folder-id parameter.

  1. View the description of the CLI command for creating a VM:

    yc compute instance create --help

  2. Prepare the snapshots of the disks, see Creating a disk snapshot.

  3. Get a list of snapshots in the default folder:

    yc compute snapshot list

    Result:

    +----------------------+-----------------+----------------------+--------+----------------------------+
|          ID          |       NAME      |     PRODUCT IDS      | STATUS |        DESCRIPTION         |
+----------------------+-----------------+----------------------+--------+----------------------------+
| fd8rlt1u2rf0l******* | first-snapshot  | f2ecl5vhsftd******** | READY  | my first snapshot via CLI  |
| fhmolt1u2rf0******** | second-snapshot | f2eclmol5lps******** | READY  | my second snapshot via CLI |
+----------------------+-----------------+----------------------+--------+----------------------------+

  4. Select the IDs (ID) or names (NAME) of the snapshots you need.

  5. Create a VM in the default folder:

    yc compute instance create \
  --name first-instance \
  --zone ru-central1-a \
  --public-ip \
  --create-boot-disk snapshot-name=first-snapshot \
  --create-disk snapshot-name=second-snapshot \
  --ssh-key ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

    This command creates a VM named first-instance in the ru-central1-a availability zone, with a public IP and disks from the snapshots.

    Note

    The VM name is used to generate an internal FQDN only once: when creating a VM. If the internal FQDN is important to you, choose an appropriate name for the VM at the creation stage.

    To create a VM without a public IP address, remove the --public-ip flag.

    If you want to add multiple network interfaces to the VM, specify the --network-interface parameter as many times as you need. You can add up to eight network interfaces to a single VM.

Use the create REST API method for the Instance resource or the InstanceService/Create gRPC API call.

Moving a disk using a special command

Note

If data is being written to the disk, its move may fail. In this case, stop the disk write operation or shut down the VM and restart the move.

To attach the disk to a VM from a different availability zone, move it:

Warning

Currently, the management console allows moving disks only from the ru-central1-c availability zone. To move disks from other availability zones, use the CLI or snapshots.

  1. In the management console, select the folder the VM belongs to.
  2. Select Compute Cloud.
  3. In the left-hand panel, select Disks.
  4. In the appropriate disk row, click → Relocate to another zone. In the window that opens:
    1. In the New availability zone field, choose the availability zone to move the disk to, e.g., ru-central1-d.
    2. Click Start relocation to start moving the disk to a different availability zone.

If you do not have the Yandex Cloud command line interface yet, install and initialize it.

The folder specified in the CLI profile is used by default. You can specify a different folder using the --folder-name or --folder-id parameter.

  1. View the description of the CLI disk move command:

    yc compute disk relocate --help

  2. Request a list of available disks:

    yc compute disk list

    Result:

    +----------------------+--------------+-------------+-------------------+--------+----------------------+-----------------+-------------+
|          ID          |     NAME     |    SIZE     |       ZONE        | STATUS |     INSTANCE IDS     | PLACEMENT GROUP | DESCRIPTION |
+----------------------+--------------+-------------+-------------------+--------+----------------------+-----------------+-------------+
| a7lqgbt0bb9s******** | first-disk   | 20401094656 |   ru-central1-a   | READY  | a7lcvu28njbh******** |                 |             |
| a7lv5j5hm1p1******** | second-disk  | 21474836480 |   ru-central1-a   | READY  |                      |                 |             |
+----------------------+--------------+-------------+-------------------+--------+----------------------+-----------------+-------------+

  3. Select the ID of the disk.

  4. Move the disk to a different availability zone:

    yc compute disk relocate --id <disk_ID> \
  --destination-zone-id <availability_zone>

    Where:

    • --id: ID of the disk you need to move.
    • --destination-zone-id: ID of the availability zone to move the disk to, e.g., ru-central1-a.

    If you are moving a disk in a placement group, provide the group ID in the --disk-placement-group-id parameter.

Note

The time it takes to move a disk to a different availability zone depends on the disk size. It takes about 10 minutes to move a 100 GB disk.

In some cases, the process may take longer if moving to the ru-central1-d availability zone.

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Moving a disk to another folder
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Encrypting a disk