size of the active disk VM

Question

size of the active disk VM

MIU_Admin 0

Greetings colleagues, please tell me how to reduce the size of the active disk from 127 GB to 256 GB, I try to change the size, but a warning is displayed that (the disk must be disabled or the managed virtual machines are freed) - I do not understand what this means! Help is much needed!


And the second question, when increasing the size of the disk, is the data not lost?

Thank you :)

Ravi Kanth Koppala 3,396 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2023-03-11T18:53:17.3766667+00:00
@MIU_Admin

To reduce the size of an active disk in Azure, you must first deallocate the virtual machine using that disk. Deallocating a virtual machine means stopping it temporarily and releasing its resources, including the disk.

When you attempt to resize an active disk, Azure will display a warning message intended to prevent accidental data loss. This message states that you cannot resize a disk while it is in use, and you need to either stop the virtual machine or move it to a different disk before resizing the active 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, you can create a new managed disk with the desired size, copy the data from the old disk to the new disk, and then attach the new disk to the virtual machine. 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.

However, it is always recommended to take a backup of the data on the disk before resizing it, just in case anything goes wrong. This backup can be taken using Azure's built-in backup service or manually copying the data to a different location.

When you resize a disk in Azure, the operating system on the virtual machine may need to be informed of the new disk size before it can use the additional space. Depending on the operating system and the application workload, this may require you to perform other steps such as resizing partitions, expanding file systems, or running disk management tools.

Therefore, follow the recommended steps and ensure that you have a backup of the data before resizing a disk to avoid any potential data loss.
SaiKishor-MSFT 17,336 Reputation points Moderator

2023-03-16T20:47:57.5+00:00

@MIU_Admin I am reaching out to see if you have any further questions. If so, please let us know and we will be glad to assist further. If the below answer was helpful, please make sure to Accept it as answer as it helps other members in the community. Thank you!
SaiKishor-MSFT 17,336 Reputation points Moderator

2023-03-20T23:21:14.33+00:00

@MIU_Admin I am reaching out to see if you have any further questions. If so, please let us know and we will be glad to assist further. If the below answer was helpful, please make sure to Accept it as answer as it helps other members in the community. Thank you!
Sumarigo-MSFT 47,511 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2023-03-31T02:43:45.5266667+00:00

@MIU_Admin Just checking in to see if the below answer helped. If this answers your query, do click "Accept the answer” for the same, which might be beneficial to other community members reading this thread. And, if you have any further query do let us know.

3 answers

Your answer

SaiKishor-MSFT 17,336 Reputation points Moderator

2023-03-16T20:47:57.5+00:00

@MIU_Admin I am reaching out to see if you have any further questions. If so, please let us know and we will be glad to assist further. If the below answer was helpful, please make sure to Accept it as answer as it helps other members in the community. Thank you!
SaiKishor-MSFT 17,336 Reputation points Moderator

2023-03-20T23:21:14.33+00:00

@MIU_Admin I am reaching out to see if you have any further questions. If so, please let us know and we will be glad to assist further. If the below answer was helpful, please make sure to Accept it as answer as it helps other members in the community. Thank you!
Sumarigo-MSFT 47,511 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2023-03-31T02:43:45.5266667+00:00

@MIU_Admin Just checking in to see if the below answer helped. If this answers your query, do click "Accept the answer” for the same, which might be beneficial to other community members reading this thread. And, if you have any further query do let us know.

Answer 1

Michael 0

If we have another new volume which has most of the disk space. If we reduce from 512 to 256gb. How can we make sure it goes from this volume and not our main C: disk?. As the data is only on the C: drive mainly, thanks. User's image

Answer 2

To reduce the size of the active disk from 127 GB to 256 GB in Azure, you will need to follow these steps:

Stop the virtual machine that uses the disk you want to resize. You can do this through the Azure Portal or using Azure PowerShell.

Once the virtual machine has been stopped, go to the "Disks" section of the virtual machine and select the disk you want to resize.

Click on "Size + performance" to bring up the disk properties.

In the "Size (GiB)" field, enter the new size you want to resize the disk to (in this case, 256 GB).

Click on "Save" to resize the disk.

Start the virtual machine again.

Note that when you resize a disk, any data on the disk is preserved. However, it's always a good practice to back up your data before making any changes to disk sizes.

Regarding the warning message you received, it means that you need to either stop the virtual machine or detach the disk from the virtual machine before you can resize the disk. Once you stop the virtual machine, you will be able to resize the disk.

connect with me on blog

Michael 0 Reputation points

2024-11-29T09:07:58.3766667+00:00

If we have another new volume which has most of the disk space. If we reduce from 512 to 256gb. How can we make sure it goes from this volume and not our main C: disk?. As the data is only on the C: drive mainly, thanks.

Answer 3

Hello MIU_Admin

I am not entirely sure if you are trying to increase or decrease the disk size, based on your question. Full details of changing the disk size can be found here https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/expand-os-disk

Increasing the disk size can be done without deallocating your virtual machine. Deallocating , a machine takes the virtual machine offline and deprovisions the underlying hardware. This can be achieved by pressing the stop button on the toolbar for that virtual machine.

User's image

If you are wanting to resize the disk while the VM is running, there are the following limitations

Only supported for data disks (Not OS Disk).
If a disk is 4 TiB or less, you should deallocate your VM and detach the disk before expanding it beyond 4 TiB. If a disk is already greater than 4 TiB, you can expand it without deallocating the VM and detaching the disk.
Not supported for Ultra disks or Premium SSD v2 disks.
Not supported for shared disks.
Install and use either:
- The latest Azure CLI
- The latest Azure PowerShell module
- The Azure portal
- Or an Azure Resource Manager template with an API version that's 2021-04-01 or newer.
Not available on some classic VMs. Use this script to get a list of classic VM SKUs that support expanding without downtime.

If your disk do not meet these requirements, then you will need to deallocate your virtual machine before following the steps on the page provided. You will not lose data for increasing disk size.

Decreasing the size of a disk can be done, though this isn't supported and may result in data loss. Ensure you have appropriate backups before attempting this and only if absolutely necessary.

I hope this clarifies things

Alistair

Share via

size of the active disk VM

3 answers

Your answer