Azure Local Expand Disk

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Azure Local Expand Disk

Handian Sudianto 6,101

How we can expand the disk in Azure Local Virtual Machine?

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Pramidha Yathipathi 1,135 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-03-27T02:45:56.0766667+00:00
Hi Handian Sudianto,

Expand the disk size of a virtual machine, the disk must be unattached, or the managing virtual machine(s) must be deallocated. This is because the disk size can only be changed when the disk is not in use. Deallocating a virtual machine means stopping it temporarily and releasing its resources, including the disk.

To resolve this issue, you need to follow these steps:

Stop the virtual machine that is using the disk you want to resize. You can do this from the Azure portal using the "Stop" button on the virtual machine's overview page.

Once the virtual machine is stopped, navigate to the "Disks" page in the Azure portal and find the disk you want to resize.

Click on the disk and then click on "Size" in the disk blade to change the disk size. You can select a new size up to the maximum size allowed for the disk type.

After resizing the disk, start the virtual machine from the overview page.

It is important to note that resizing a disk can take some time and may require a virtual machine reboot. You should also ensure that you have backed up any important data before changing the disk size.

Additionally, if you do not want to deallocate the virtual machine to resize the disk, create a new managed disk of the desired size, copy the data from the old disk, and attach the new disk to the VM. This approach allows you to avoid downtime but requires some additional steps.

When increasing the size of a disk in Azure, the data on the disk should not be lost as long as you follow the recommended steps and do not accidentally delete the disk or its contents.

It is advisable to back up the data on the disk before resizing it to prevent potential data loss. You can use Azure's built-in backup service or manually copy the data to another location for this purpose.

When you resize a disk in Azure, the virtual machine's operating system may need to be notified of the new disk size to utilize the additional space. This process may involve resizing partitions, expanding file systems, or using disk management tools, depending on the operating system and application workload.

Ensure to follow the recommended steps and create a backup of your data before resizing a disk to avoid any risk of data loss.

Please refer to this document for more information:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/expand-disks

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If you have any further queries, please let us know we are glad to help you.

Thank you.

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Answer 1

Mounika Reddy Anumandla 6,845 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi Handian Sudianto,

Unlike Azure cloud VMs, where you expand disks from the Azure Portal, for Azure Stack HCI, you need to expand the disk at the hypervisor level (Hyper-V) and inside the guest OS.

If the virtual disk has no storage tiers, you can expand it directly using the Resize-VirtualDisk cmdlet.

Provide the new size in the -Size parameter.

Get-VirtualDisk

When you expand the VirtualDisk, the associated Disk follows automatically and is resized too. Animated diagram shows the virtual disk of a volume becoming larger while the disk layer immediately above it automatically becomes larger as a result.

For more information please see: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/storage-spaces/manage-volumes?tabs=powershell#capacity-in-the-storage-pool

Hope this helps!

If the information is helpful, please click ""Accept answer" and upvote.

Lee Woodhouse 0

I wrote this script and keep it stored on my Azure Local stack for just such occasions. It makes the process a lot easier.

Just edit the script for your environment as follows:

Change <DOMAIN\username>, <insertpassword> and <domain> values as required.
Change the $nodes array to match the number of nodes in your stack.

Example output:

# Define credentials
$cred = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ("<DOMAIN\username>", (ConvertTo-SecureString "<insertpassword>" -AsPlainText -Force))

$domain = "<domain>"

# Step 1: Select Node
$nodes = @("Node 1", "Node 2", "Node 3", "Node 4", "Node 5")

Write-Host "Select a Node to Connect:"
for ($i = 0; $i -lt $nodes.Length; $i++) {
    Write-Host "$($i+1). $($nodes[$i])"
}

$nodeIndex = Read-Host "Enter the number corresponding to the node"
if ($nodeIndex -match '^\d+$' -and $nodeIndex -ge 1 -and $nodeIndex -le $nodes.Length) {
    $nodeSelection = "$($nodes[$nodeIndex - 1]).$domain"
} else {
    Write-Host "Invalid selection. Exiting." -ForegroundColor Red
    exit
}

# Step 2: Start PSSession to Selected Node (Using FQDN)
Write-Host "Connecting to ${nodeSelection}..." -ForegroundColor Yellow
try {
    $session = New-PSSession -ComputerName $nodeSelection -Credential $cred
    Write-Host "Connected to ${nodeSelection} successfully." -ForegroundColor Green
} catch {
    Write-Host "Failed to connect to ${nodeSelection}. Exiting." -ForegroundColor Red
    exit
}

# Step 3: List VMs and Select One
$vmList = Invoke-Command -Session $session -ScriptBlock { Get-VM | Select-Object Name }
if ($vmList.Count -eq 0) {
    Write-Host "No VMs found on ${nodeSelection}. Exiting." -ForegroundColor Red
    exit
}

Write-Host "`nAvailable VMs on ${nodeSelection}:"
for ($i = 0; $i -lt $vmList.Count; $i++) {
    Write-Host "$($i+1). $($vmList[$i].Name)"
}

$vmIndex = Read-Host "Enter the number corresponding to the VM"
if ($vmIndex -match '^\d+$' -and $vmIndex -ge 1 -and $vmIndex -le $vmList.Count) {
    $vmName = $vmList[$vmIndex - 1].Name
} else {
    Write-Host "Invalid selection. Exiting." -ForegroundColor Red
    exit
}

# Step 4: List Hard Disks and Select One (Display filename only)
$diskList = Invoke-Command -Session $session -ScriptBlock {
    param($vm)
    Get-VMHardDiskDrive -VMName $vm | Select-Object Path, @{Name="SizeGB"; Expression={(Get-VHD -Path $_.Path).Size / 1GB}}
} -ArgumentList $vmName

Write-Host "`nAvailable Hard Disks for VM ${vmName}:"
for ($i = 0; $i -lt $diskList.Count; $i++) {
    $diskFileName = [System.IO.Path]::GetFileName($diskList[$i].Path)  # Extracts only the filename
    Write-Host "$($i+1). Disk: ${diskFileName} | Size: $([math]::Round($diskList[$i].SizeGB, 2)) GB"
}

$diskIndex = Read-Host "Enter the number corresponding to the disk"
if ($diskIndex -match '^\d+$' -and $diskIndex -ge 1 -and $diskIndex -le $diskList.Count) {
    $diskPath = $diskList[$diskIndex - 1].Path
    $diskFileName = [System.IO.Path]::GetFileName($diskPath)
} else {
    Write-Host "Invalid selection. Exiting." -ForegroundColor Red
    exit
}

# Step 5: Get New Disk Size from User
$newSizeGB = Read-Host "Enter new disk size in GB (e.g., 250 for 250GB)"
if ($newSizeGB -match '^\d+$') {
    $newSizeBytes = [int]$newSizeGB * 1GB
} else {
    Write-Host "Invalid input. Exiting." -ForegroundColor Red
    exit
}

# Step 6: Confirm Before Proceeding
$confirm = Read-Host "Are you sure you want to resize the disk ${diskFileName} to ${newSizeGB} GB? (Y/N)"
if ($confirm -notmatch '^[Yy]$') {
    Write-Host "Operation canceled." -ForegroundColor Yellow
    exit
}

# Step 7: Attempt a Graceful Shutdown First
Write-Host "`nAttempting to stop VM ${vmName} gracefully..." -ForegroundColor Yellow
Invoke-Command -Session $session -ScriptBlock { param($vm) Stop-VM -Name $vm -Force } -ArgumentList $vmName

# Wait for VM to turn off (Max 2 minutes)
$timeout = 120  # Maximum wait time in seconds (2 minutes)
$elapsed = 0
$interval = 5  # Check every 5 seconds

do {
    Start-Sleep -Seconds $interval
    $elapsed += $interval
    $vmState = Invoke-Command -Session $session -ScriptBlock {
        param($vm)
        (Get-VM -Name $vm).State.ToString()  # Ensure it returns a string
    } -ArgumentList $vmName

    Write-Host "Current state: ${vmState}" -ForegroundColor Cyan

} while ($vmState -ne "Off" -and $elapsed -lt $timeout)

# If VM is still not Off, force power off
if ($vmState -ne "Off") {
    Write-Host "VM did not shut down in time. Forcing power off..." -ForegroundColor Red
    Invoke-Command -Session $session -ScriptBlock { param($vm) Stop-VM -Name $vm -TurnOff } -ArgumentList $vmName
}

# Final confirmation that VM is Off
do {
    Start-Sleep -Seconds 5
    $vmState = Invoke-Command -Session $session -ScriptBlock {
        param($vm)
        (Get-VM -Name $vm).State.ToString()  # Ensure string format
    } -ArgumentList $vmName

    Write-Host "Current state after force stop attempt: ${vmState}" -ForegroundColor Cyan

} while ($vmState -ne "Off")

Write-Host "VM ${vmName} is now fully stopped." -ForegroundColor Green

# Step 8: Resize Disk
Write-Host "Resizing disk ${diskFileName} to ${newSizeGB} GB..." -ForegroundColor Yellow
Invoke-Command -Session $session -ScriptBlock { param($path, $size) Resize-VHD -Path $path -SizeBytes $size } -ArgumentList $diskPath, $newSizeBytes
Write-Host "Disk resized successfully." -ForegroundColor Green

# Step 9: Start VM
Write-Host "Starting VM ${vmName}..." -ForegroundColor Yellow
Invoke-Command -Session $session -ScriptBlock { param($vm) Start-VM -Name $vm } -ArgumentList $vmName

# Wait for VM to reach "Running" state
do {
    Start-Sleep -Seconds 5
    $vmState = Invoke-Command -Session $session -ScriptBlock { param($vm) (Get-VM -Name $vm).State.ToString() } -ArgumentList $vmName
    Write-Host "Current state: ${vmState}" -ForegroundColor Cyan
} while ($vmState -ne "Running")

Write-Host "VM ${vmName} is running." -ForegroundColor Green
Write-Host "Operation completed successfully!" -ForegroundColor Cyan

# Cleanup
Remove-PSSession $session

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Azure Local Expand Disk

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