Linode Block Storage (Fremont beta)

Yay!

Just to confirm, I just created several and the instructions said they're going to be attached momentarily. However, it's been a good 10-15 minutes, and none of them have shown up yet. Is that normal?

archon810 - Sorry about the delayed response. We have located the ticket you submitted so we will provide you with a response there.

Hi,

I know a couple months ago when it was said Fremont would have the beta, it was also said that the other data centers would probably go much quicker with implementing and having block storage available. Is there any estimated timeline on that, or even a best guess? I've got my Linode in Dallas that I'd like to use block storage with, but I don't want to migrate to get it. I'm just interested in a estimate or guess as to the wait time for the implementation of block storage in Dallas.

Also, how stable is block storage now? Is data loss a likely possibility while it's in beta? Will any formats or anything of that nature change significantly enough to require that you set up your block storage again once it's already been used? Knowing Linode, the transition in such cases is likely to be seamless, but I thought I'd check to be sure.

Blake

Thanks for your questions, Blake…

> I'm just interested in a estimate or guess as to the wait time for the implementation of block storage in Dallas.

This is part of the problem with guessing - it can set an incorrect expectation.

For us, the most important thing was to gain the experience and confidence in our engineering, and to come up with a configuration that met our objectives. We feel pretty confident in the Fremont cluster's config, but that's the entire point of doing a beta: to get that validation. Unless we learn something new during this beta, this will be the config we roll out to the remaining DCs – which will likely begin a few weeks from now. Dallas is at the very top of that list.

> Also, how stable is block storage now? Is data loss a likely possibility while it's in beta?

Data loss is a possibility in life in general, but so far the Block Storage service has been solid / stable.

> Will any formats or anything of that nature change significantly enough to require that you set up your block storage again once it's already been used? Knowing Linode, the transition in such cases is likely to be seamless, but I thought I'd check to be sure.

Doubtful, but it's a possibility.

-Chris

Hello,

Thank you for your responses. As always, they're superb!

Blake

Does this storage act like an external drive? Could we use it to run rsync commands to backup files?

> Does this storage act like an external drive? Could we use it to run rsync commands to backup files?

Yes and yes.

"Volumes attached to Linodes appear as block devices and can be formatted and mounted just like any other block device."

-Chris

Hello, i am using the block storage since it was released. But the problem i faced recently is my 40GB block storage is not attaching to any linodes any more. It was okay in the past. I already opened a support ticket. They said they would notify me asap as i have some files in there. It shows this error message "DiskID volume664 is not a valid DiskID".

Storage service is great :D <3 But please solve this issue.

Thank you.

^^ That's alarming. Curious to hear the cause.

I'm seeing a weird issue with the same block device mounted on 2 Linodes, with one left in a weird ghost mode. Filed a ticket with support (https://manager.linode.com/support/ticket/8988939), but if you want, I can paste its content here @caker.

We are currently having Linode set up at Singapore, SG. We are really in need of the block storage option to expand the storage. Please let us know a rough estimate on when the feature will be expanded to Singapore, SG?

Is the replication on volumes synchronous or asynchronous? And do individual writes obey the sync settings sent by the OS? Is the data cached in NVMe and de-staged later? Trying to get a feel for the implications of running a DB on the remote storage as opposed to local.

Storage has always been one of Linode's weaknesses. This will be game changer. Very exciting!

Since it's got some spinning disk would be awesome if it could be priced "cheaper than the competitors"…just sayin' :)

Cheers!

@webolop:

We are currently having Linode set up at Singapore, SG. We are really in need of the block storage option to expand the storage. Please let us know a rough estimate of when the feature will be expanded to Singapore, SG?

It would be great if someone could answer this! It is very difficult for people like me to get a response from the linode team. Gives me no other option other than moving to some other hosting providers.

@caker Any chance of offering shared storage that you can mount across multiple servers in the same DC in the future? That'd be tremendously helpful and would eliminate the need for setting up glusterfs, NFS, or something like that.

How long does the Beta takes ? Linode is behind .. digitalocean has it already up and running. Linode is sometimes very slow in things.

Linode may sometimes be slow at things, but when something is finally out of beta, it works reliably and correctly. I've seen that every time with anything new they've come out with, so I wouldn't mind waiting a few years if need be.

@Tech10:

Linode may sometimes be slow at things, but when something is finally out of beta, it works reliably and correctly. I've seen that every time with anything new they've come out with, so I wouldn't mind waiting a few years if need be.

I don't have a few years

It's been 1.5 years already: https://forum.linode.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=13918 Which corresponds to the time where the competition announced the same feature on some of their data centers.

And 6 it's been months from the initial beta.

I really like Linode and yes they are really reliable. But unfortunately this doesn't change the fact that they are still behind the competition. Answering the market needs on time is as important as being reliable.

@nicketr:

It's been 1.5 years already: https://forum.linode.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=13918 Which corresponds to the time where the competition announced the same feature on some of their data centers.

And 6 it's been months from the initial beta.

I really like Linode and yes they are really reliable. But unfortunately this doesn't change the fact that they are still behind the competition. Answering the market needs on time is as important as being reliable.

This is about the company culture. A trade off between being on time (according to market needs) or being reliable. Most of the time those two can not go together.

Everybody knows what Linode prefers. So no hurry, we got time till we die :).

@caker:

* The beta is free through 2017. January 1, 2018 the meter starts running.

So now that it's 2018 and presumably is a commercial service and not just a beta, will this be rolling out to all datacenters in the near future?

In addition to that, when are we going to be able to create disks beyond 1TB?

Hi,

What you quoted seems to indicate that the service is still in beta. It's just not a free beta any longer. You're paying for it now, but it stated nothing about being out of beta on January 1, 2018. Good thing, too, since the other data centers don't have it available for use currently, to my knowledge.

Blake

I haven't been charged for January, but they're starting to in February.

> Hello,

We hope you’re doing well! We’re sending you this update because you’re participating in our Block Storage beta and have an active Volume on your account.

With the gracious and helpful feedback from our community and hard work from our teams, we’re ecstatic to announce that Block Storage will be officially launching on February 1st, 2018!

Starting on February 1st, you will be billed for any active Volumes on your account. These will appear on your invoices like normal. The cost for Block Storage Volumes will be $0.10/GB, per month.

If you prefer to remove your Volume(s), you may do so via the Manager. You can find information on how to remove your Block Storage Volumes within the following guide:

https://www.linode.com/docs/platform/ho … age-volume">https://www.linode.com/docs/platform/how-to-use-block-storage-with-your-linode/#how-to-delete-a-block-storage-volume

Block Storage is available immediately in our Fremont facility, with the remaining data centers coming earlier this year.

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns about this, and thank you again for helping to make Block Storage at Linode success!

Kind regards,

Linode

I did ask about volumes larger than 1TB, since the linked site still says 1TB is max, but haven't heard back from the ticket team yet.

Hello!

I want downgrade my linode. How i can solve problem with disk space? How i can add new storage to exist storage and not lost my data when i will downgrade?

Got an answer from support re: 1TB.

> Hey there -

We've decided to keep the max size at 1TB for now. This may change at a later date as the service's usage grows, but this will be the volume size limit at launch.

All the best -

Nathan

Linode Support Team

Outdated info. Say tuned for an announcement tomorrow :)

Thanks to all those that participated in this beta!

-Chris

I just found a pretty critical bug with volume handling and filed a ticket (9907668). I don't know if Linode wants to proceed with the launch tomorrow before it's fixed, it's quite serious.

@archon810:

I just found a pretty critical bug with volume handling and filed a ticket (9907668). I don't know if Linode wants to proceed with the launch tomorrow before it's fixed, it's quite serious.

Argh, yeah - a regression introduced during a deploy yesterday; squashed this morning. During assignment, it was incorrectly deciding which device slot in the config profile to add the Volume to. Fix should be pushed out this AM (if not already).

-Chris

@caker:

@archon810:

I just found a pretty critical bug with volume handling and filed a ticket (9907668). I don't know if Linode wants to proceed with the launch tomorrow before it's fixed, it's quite serious.

Argh, yeah - a regression introduced during a deploy yesterday; squashed this morning. During assignment, it was incorrectly deciding which device slot in the config profile to add the Volume to. Fix should be pushed out this AM (if not already).

-Chris

Nice. Hope you guys put in a test for it internally. Is today's launching happening still?

@archon810:

@caker:

@archon810:

I just found a pretty critical bug with volume handling and filed a ticket (9907668). I don't know if Linode wants to proceed with the launch tomorrow before it's fixed, it's quite serious.

Argh, yeah - a regression introduced during a deploy yesterday; squashed this morning. During assignment, it was incorrectly deciding which device slot in the config profile to add the Volume to. Fix should be pushed out this AM (if not already).

-Chris

Nice. Hope you guys put in a test for it internally. Is today's launching happening still?

You may have seen already, but today's launch took place as planned.

Yay, 10TB!

Any chance or being able to scale IOPS?

We were not able to use Block Storage for our 1TB database as the reads and writes were too slow compared to what we were getting with the local SSDs

Will this feature support Tokyo 2 Linode?