How to Increase an Oracle Cloud Boot Volume

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure allows you to expand the size of a boot volume without rebuilding your instance. This can be done online in many cases, meaning you can keep your system running while the change is applied. Below is a practical guide to resizing your boot volume safely.

1. Understand the Limits

• You can only increase the size of a boot volume. Reducing it is not supported.

• The maximum size for a boot volume is 16 TB.

• If cross‑region replication is enabled, you must disable it before resizing.

• Always take a backup before making changes.

2. Prepare for the Resize

1. Check your current boot volume size In the OCI Console, go to Compute → Boot Volumes and select your instance’s boot volume.

2. Review performance settings If you are on a paid performance tier and want to stay in the Always Free limits, ensure the performance level is set to Lower Cost.

3. Resize the Boot Volume in the OCI Console

1. Sign in to the Oracle Cloud Console.

2. Open the navigation menu and go to Compute → Boot Volumes.

3. Locate the boot volume you want to resize and click its name.

4. Click Edit Size or Performance.

5. Enter the new size in GB. This must be larger than the current size.

6. Save the changes.

4. Resize the Partition and Filesystem in Linux

After the OCI change is applied, your operating system will see the extra space, but you must extend the partition and filesystem to use it.

1. Check the device name

   bash

    lsblk
   

   Identify your boot disk (often /dev/sda or /dev/nvme0n1).

2. Grow the partition (if using GPT and cloud-init has not done it automatically)

   bash

    sudo growpart /dev/sda 1
   

   Replace /dev/sda 1 with your actual device and partition number.

3. Resize the filesystem For ext4:

   bash

    sudo resize2fs /dev/sda1
   

   For XFS:

   bash

    sudo xfs_growfs /
   

4. Verify the new size

   bash

    df -h
   

5. Best Practices

• Keep your boot volume performance tier within free limits if cost control is important.

• Schedule the resize during a maintenance window if you are unsure about online resizing.

• Maintain regular backups so you can roll back if needed.