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Changing VM computing resources

Written by
Updated at May 26, 2025

After you create a VM, you can change its computing resources. For more information on how to change a VM name, description, and tags, see Updating a VM.

Changing the vCPU and RAM configuration

This section explains you how to change the number and performance of vCPUs and the amount of RAM.

To change the vCPU and RAM of a VM:

  1. In the management console, select the folder the VM belongs to.

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

  3. Click the VM name.

  4. Click Stop in the top-right corner of the page.

  5. In the window that opens, click Stop.

  6. Wait until the VM status changes to Stopped, then click Edit VM in the top-right corner of the page.

  7. Change the VM configuration under Computing resources. To do this:

  8. Click Save changes.

  9. Click Start in the top-right corner.

  10. In the window that opens, click Start.

If you do not have the Yandex Cloud CLI yet, install and initialize it.

By default, the CLI uses the folder specified when creating the profile. To change the default folder, use the yc config set folder-id <folder_ID> command. You can also set a different folder for any specific command using the --folder-name or --folder-id parameter.

  1. See the description of the CLI command for updating VM parameters:

    yc compute instance update --help

  2. Get a list of VMs in the default folder:

    yc compute instance list

    Result:

    +----------------------+-----------------+---------------+---------+----------------------+
|          ID          |       NAME      |    ZONE ID    | STATUS  |     DESCRIPTION      |
+----------------------+-----------------+---------------+---------+----------------------+
| fhm0b28lgfp4******** | first-instance  | ru-central1-a | RUNNING | my first vm via CLI  |
| fhm9gk85nj7g******** | second-instance | ru-central1-a | RUNNING | my second vm via CLI |
+----------------------+-----------------+---------------+---------+----------------------+

  3. Select ID or NAME of the VM, e.g., first-instance.

  4. Stop the VM:

    yc compute instance stop first-instance

  5. Get the current VM configuration with metadata:

    yc compute instance get --full first-instance

  6. Change the VM configuration:

    yc compute instance update first-instance \
  --memory 32 \
  --cores 4 \
  --core-fraction 100

    This command will change the VM configuration as follows:

    • Guaranteed vCPU allocation to 100%.
    • Number of vCPUs to 4.
    • RAM to 32 GB.

  7. Run the VM:

    yc compute instance start first-instance

To change the vCPU and RAM of a VM, use the update REST API method for the Instance resource or the InstanceService/Update gRPC API call.

Warning

When you edit VM resources, the PCI topology might change. Keep this in mind when working with operating systems sensitive to such changes. For example, if you make substantial changes to network settings in Windows Server, you may lose network connectivity and access to the VM.

Adding a GPU to an existing VM

To add a GPU to an existing VM, change the platform and specify the number of GPUs.

To change the number of GPUs on a VM:

  1. In the management console, select the folder the VM belongs to.

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

  3. Click the VM name.

  4. Click Stop in the top-right corner of the page.

  5. In the window that opens, click Stop.

  6. Wait until the VM status changes to Stopped, then click Edit VM in the top-right corner of the page.

  7. Under Computing resources:

    • Go to the GPU tab.

    • Select one of these platforms:

      • Intel Broadwell with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100
      • Intel Cascade Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100
      • AMD EPYC™ with NVIDIA® Ampere® A100
      • Intel Ice Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® T4
      • Intel Ice Lake with T4i

    • Select one of the available configurations with the required number of GPUs, vCPUs, and amount of RAM.

  8. Click Save changes.

  9. Click Start in the top-right corner of the page.

  10. In the window that opens, click Start.

If you do not have the Yandex Cloud CLI yet, install and initialize it.

By default, the CLI uses the folder specified when creating the profile. To change the default folder, use the yc config set folder-id <folder_ID> command. You can also set a different folder for any specific command using the --folder-name or --folder-id parameter.

  1. See the description of the CLI command for updating VM parameters:

    yc compute instance update --help

  2. Get a list of VMs in the default folder:

    yc compute instance list

    Result:

    +----------------------+-----------------+---------------+---------+----------------------+
|          ID          |       NAME      |    ZONE ID    | STATUS  |     DESCRIPTION      |
+----------------------+-----------------+---------------+---------+----------------------+
| fhm0b28lgfp4******** | first-instance  | ru-central1-a | RUNNING | my first vm via CLI  |
| fhm9gk85nj7g******** | second-instance | ru-central1-a | RUNNING | my second vm via CLI |
+----------------------+-----------------+---------------+---------+----------------------+

  3. Select ID or NAME of the VM, e.g., first-instance.

  4. Stop the VM:

    yc compute instance stop first-instance

  5. Get the current VM configuration with metadata:

    yc compute instance get --full first-instance

  6. Change the VM configuration:

    yc compute instance update first-instance \
  --platform=standard-v3-t4 \
  --cores=8 \
  --memory=32 \
  --gpus=1

    This command will change the VM configuration as follows:

    • Platform to Intel Ice Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® T4.
    • Number of vCPUs to 8.
    • RAM to 32 GB.
    • Number of GPUs to 1.

  7. Run the VM:

    yc compute instance start first-instance

To change the platform and configuration of a VM, use the update REST API method for the Instance resource or the InstanceService/Update gRPC API call.

Changing the number of GPUs

To change the number of GPUs on an existing VM:

  1. In the management console, select the folder the VM belongs to.

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

  3. Click the VM name.

  4. Click Stop in the top-right corner of the page.

  5. In the window that opens, click Stop.

  6. Wait until the VM status changes to Stopped, then click Edit VM in the top-right corner of the page.

  7. Under Computing resources:

    • Go to the GPU tab.

    • Select one of these platforms:

      • Intel Broadwell with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100
      • Intel Cascade Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100
      • AMD EPYC™ with NVIDIA® Ampere® A100
      • Intel Ice Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® T4
      • Intel Ice Lake with T4i

    • Select one of the available configurations with the required number of GPUs, vCPUs, and amount of RAM.

  8. Click Save changes.

  9. Click Start in the top-right corner of the page.

  10. In the window that opens, click Start.

If you do not have the Yandex Cloud CLI yet, install and initialize it.

By default, the CLI uses the folder specified when creating the profile. To change the default folder, use the yc config set folder-id <folder_ID> command. You can also set a different folder for any specific command using the --folder-name or --folder-id parameter.

  1. See the description of the CLI command for updating VM parameters:

    yc compute instance update --help

  2. Get a list of VMs in the default folder:

    yc compute instance list

    Result:

    +----------------------+-----------------+---------------+---------+----------------------+
|          ID          |       NAME      |    ZONE ID    | STATUS  |     DESCRIPTION      |
+----------------------+-----------------+---------------+---------+----------------------+
| fhm0b28lgfp4******** | first-instance  | ru-central1-a | RUNNING | my first vm via CLI  |
| fhm9gk85nj7g******** | second-instance | ru-central1-a | RUNNING | my second vm via CLI |
+----------------------+-----------------+---------------+---------+----------------------+

  3. Select ID or NAME of the VM, e.g., first-instance.

  4. Stop the VM:

    yc compute instance stop first-instance

  5. Get the current VM configuration with metadata:

    yc compute instance get --full first-instancegit

  6. Change the VM configuration:

    yc compute instance update first-instance \
  --gpus=2 \
  --cores=56 \
  --memory=238

    This command will change the number of GPUs to 2.

    The values of the --cores (number of vCPUs) and --memory (RAM size in GB) parameters depend on the platform and the number of GPUs. For more information, see the list of available configurations.

  7. Run the VM:

    yc compute instance start first-instance

To change the number of GPUs, use the update REST API method for the Instance resource or the InstanceService/Update gRPC API call.

Enabling a software-accelerated network

Warning

This feature is only available upon agreement with your account manager.

To enable a software-accelerated network on an existing VM:

  1. In the management console, select the folder the VM belongs to.
  2. In the list of services, select Compute Cloud.
  3. Click the VM name.
  4. Click Stop in the top-right corner of the page.
  5. In the window that opens, click Stop.
  6. Wait until the VM status changes to Stopped, then click Edit VM in the top-right corner of the page.
  7. Under Computing resources, open the Custom tab and enable Software network acceleration.
  8. Click Save changes.
  9. Click Start in the top-right corner of the page.
  10. In the window that opens, click Start.
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