8 Block Volume Storage Overview

Block Volumes provide high-performance network storage capacity that supports a broad range of I/O intensive workloads.

A block volume is a detachable block storage device that allows you to dynamically expand the storage capacity of your compute instances, provide durable and persistent data storage that can be migrated across compute instances, and host large databases.

The Block Volume service enables you to group multiple volumes in a volume group. Volume groups simplify the process to create backups and clones. For more information, see Block Volume Groups.

You can create, attach, connect, and move volumes, as well as change volume performance to meet your storage, performance, and application requirements.

After you attach and connect a volume to a compute instance, you can use the volume like a regular hard drive. You can also disconnect a volume and attach it to another compute instance without the loss of data.

The default size for block volumes is 1024 GB (1TB). Block volume size range is 50 GB to 32768 GB (32 TB).

For step-by-step instructions for managing block volumes, Refer to Block Volume Storage in the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance User Guide.

For information about boot volumes, see Boot Volumes.

Required Components

The following components are required to create a block volume and attach it to a compute instance:

• Compute Instance: A virtual machine (VM) running in the cloud appliance.

• Volume attachment: A paravirtualized attachment that is available for compute instances.

• Volume: A block volume.