Create a storage volume¶
A volume is a disk you rent separately from any instance. Your dashboard's data goes here, so that it survives whatever happens to the server.
Do I need one?
Yes, if your data is more than about a gigabyte, or if losing it would mean re-uploading something painful, or if you might rebuild the instance later.
Not necessarily, if your dashboard reads a couple of small CSV files that live inside the project folder itself. Those get copied onto the instance along with your code. You can skip to Part 2 and add a volume later.
1. Create it¶
In Exosphere: Create → Volume.
- Name
- Keep it short and lowercase, with hyphens instead of spaces —
salmon-data, notSalmon Data (2024). The name becomes part of a filesystem path you'll type and read later, and spaces and capitals make that unpleasant. - Size
-
Ask for what your data needs plus comfortable headroom. Volumes can be grown later but not shrunk, and you're billed for what you reserve, so don't reflexively ask for a terabyte.
A useful rule: your dataset's size, doubled, rounded up to something tidy. A 40 GB dataset → ask for 100 GB.
Click Create. It's ready in seconds — volumes are much faster to create than instances.
2. Check it appears¶
Your new volume shows in the volume list as Available, meaning it exists but isn't connected to anything yet.
What a volume costs¶
Storage is charged separately from instance time and is comparatively cheap. Jetstream2 documents current rates under Allocations.
Two things worth knowing:
- You are billed for the size you reserved, not the size you used. A 500 GB volume holding 10 GB of data costs the same as a full one.
- A volume keeps costing while it's detached. Deleting the instance does not delete the volume — that's the point of it, but it does mean an orphaned volume can quietly bill you for months. Delete volumes you've genuinely finished with.
Common problems¶
Create is greyed out, or it says I'm over quota
Allocations have a storage quota separate from the compute one, covering both total gigabytes and number of volumes. Exosphere shows both on your allocation page.
Delete volumes you no longer need, or request a quota increase through ACCESS.
Can I make it bigger later?
Yes. Exosphere has a Resize action on a volume, and it can be grown while attached on recent Jetstream2 images. It cannot be shrunk.
Can two instances share one volume?
Not safely, and Jetstream2 doesn't support it. A volume attaches to one instance at a time. If two dashboards need the same dataset, either put both on one instance's volume, or keep two copies.
Next → Attach the volume