Manage Disk Settings

Virtual server storage is provided by disks. A disk is a partition of a data store that is allocated to a specific virtual server. Disks can be assigned as standard or swap disks. Managing disks for the entire cloud is handled through the Control Panel's Settings menu. This section contains information on how to view, edit, migrate and delete every disk in the cloud, and get quick access to their backup and schedule functions.

Do not create multiple partitions on one disk for virtual servers. OnApp Control Panel supports only one partition per disk. In cases when you change disk partition, the CP might loose control of such a disk and the VS associated with it. If required, create additional disks instead.


View Disks

To view a disk:

  1. Go to your Control Panel > Admin > Settings > Disks menu.
  2. On the page that loads, you can see the list of all the disks in the cloud and their details:
    • Disk - disk ID
    • Label - disk label
    • Size - disk size in GB
    • Data Store - data store the disk is configured on
    • Virtual Server - the virtual server the disk is assigned to
    • Mounted? - whether the disk is mounted or not
    • File system - the disk's file system 
    • Type- the disk's type (swap or standard)
    • Built? - whether the disk has been built or not
    • Backups - number of backups taken
    • Auto-backup? - whether auto-backups are scheduled for this disk


On this page:

See also:


If you are viewing the disks list on a narrow screen, you can customize the way the table is displayed by clicking the actions icon at the top of the table. In the drop-down list that appears, check the columns you want to be displayed and click Apply. The narrower your screen is, the more unchecked columns will be hidden from the table. If your screen is too narrow to fit all the columns you have checked, a scrollbar will appear at the bottom of the disks list. You can always alter your column selection later. Note that by default the Backups, Auto-backup? and Disk columns are not visible in the table on narrow screens.


Column selection is currently set for one browser. If you have checked some columns in one browser and open the list in some other browser, the column selection will be the default one for that other browser.

Enable Disk Auto-Backups


To enable disk auto-backups:

  1. Go to your Control Panel > Admin > Settings > Disks menu.
  2. Move the Auto-backup icon to the right next to the required disk.

You can use disk auto-backups to enable/disable automatic backups for a particular disk. If the incremental backups are enabled in your cloud, you can set auto-backups per VS rather than per disk.

If disk auto-backups were turned on before enabling the incremental backups option, you will need to disable the disk auto-backups and enable incremental auto-backup per virtual server.

Backup Disks


The Disks screen lists all the disks in the cloud and indicates disk ID, disk label, disk size, data store they're configured on, the virtual server they're assigned to, their type, status, number of backups taken and backup status.

To back up a disk:

  1. Go to your Control Panel > Admin > Settings > Disks menu.
  2. Click the Actions > Backup button next to the required disk.
  3. Click Take a Backup button.

Migrate Disks

  • If required, you can change the block size which is used during disk migration at Control Panel > Settings > Configuration by editing the Block Size (MB) parameter.
  • We recommend to create a disk backup before starting the migration process to avoid potential data loss.

You can migrate disks to other data stores, which are allocated to the same Compute resource. Unlike VS migration – disk migration requires reboot of the VS (despite the template it is based on). You can only migrate disks to data stores in data store zones assigned to your bucket.

To migrate a disk to another data store:

  1. Go to your Control Panel >  Admin > Settings > Disks menu.
  2. Click the Actions button next to the disk you want to change, then click the Migrate link.
  3. Choose the type of migration (can be hot or cold).
  4. Choose a target data store.
  5. Click the Start Migrate button.

View Disk IOPS

To see IOPS for a disk:

  1. Go to your Control Panel > Admin > Settings > Disks menu.
  2. Click the Actions button next to the required disk, then click the IOPS link.
  3. There are four charts on the screen that appears:
    • Instant IOPS - summary IO operations per minute
    • Hourly IOPS - summary IO operations per hour
    • Instant data written/read - data written/read for the last 24 hours
  4. To zoom into a time period, click and drag in a chart. Click the Reset Zoom button to zoom out again.

Edit Disk IO Limits

IOPS limiting functionality allows you to prioritize the load on a SAN for VSs. IOPS limiting can be set for data store or for separate disks.

Ensure that the IO Limiting permissions are on before managing IO limits. For more information refer to the List of all OnApp Permissions section of this guide.

To edit a disk IO limits:

  1. Go to your Control Panel > Admin > Settings menu.
  2. Click the Disks icon. You'll see a list of the disks on your system.
  3. Click the Actions button next to the disk you want to change, then click Edit IO Limits.
  4. On the following page move the Override DataStore IO Limits slider to the right to edit the appropriate details:
      • Read IOPS - set the read IOPS amount
      • Write IOPS - set the write IOPS amount
      • Read throughput - specify the read throughput (in MB/s)
      • Write throughput - specify the write throughput (in MB/s)

  5. Click the Save button to finish.

To disable IOPS limiting:

  1. Go to your Control Panel > Admin > Settings menu.
  2. Click the Disks icon. You'll see a list of the disks on your system.
  3. Click the Actions button next to the disk you want to change, then click Edit IO Limits.
  4. On the following page set all parameters to Unlimited.

  5. Click the Save button to finish.

  6. Go to /onapp/interface/config/on_app.yml file and set the io_limiting_enabled parameter as 'false'. Disabling will only remove the feature from the UI, old vdisk limits will be used if not set to unlimited. 

Schedule Disks for Backups

In addition to the system auto-backup presets, you can schedule backups of virtual servers (VS disks) as required. For example, you can set up a schedule to back up your disks once a week.

To schedule a backup:

  1. Go to your Control Panel > Admin > Settings > Disks menu.
  2. Click Actions > Schedule for backups button next to a disk to schedule a backup for.

Delete Disks

To delete a disk:

  1. Go to your Control Panel > Admin > Settings > Disks menu.
  2. Click Actions > Delete button next to a disk to delete it. You'll be asked for confirmation before the disk is removed. All backups for this disk will be removed too.

Disk Wipe

OnApp Cloud provides two ways to clean VS data when deleting or migrating a VS's disk. By default, OnApp Cloud will format the physical disk space used by a virtual server when that VS's virtual disk is deleted, or when the VS disk is migrated to another data store.

You can also choose to wipe/format a VS's disk (filling it with zeroes) by changing a configuration setting on the OnApp Control Panel server.  To enable this behavior:

  1. Log in as root on your OnApp Control Panel server.
  2. Edit the following configuration file: /onapp/interface/config/on_app.yml and set the wipe_out_disk_on_destroy parameter to true.
  3. Restart OnApp service:  service onapp restart.

The wipe_out_disk_on_destroy value is set to FALSE by default. If you wish to return disk wiping behaviour to the default setting (formatting rather than zeroing disks), simply edit the config file and set the value to FALSE again.