Expand Disk After Upgrade

After expanding the VPS disk from the panel, extend the partition and filesystem without losing data.

After upgrading your plan from VirtFusion, the additional space is allocated to the virtual disk but is not yet usable until you extend the partition and filesystem.

First of all

Take a snapshot from the VirtFusion panel before proceeding. Operations on partitions and filesystems, if interrupted, can make the system unbootable.

Check available space

# Total physical disk space
fdisk -l /dev/vda | head -5

# Space used per partition
df -h

# Current partitions
lsblk

Typical output:

vda      252G   # total disk (new)
└─vda1   100G   # current partition (old size)

Identify the disk and partition

lsblk -f

NAME   FSTYPE  SIZE  MOUNTPOINT
vda           252G
└─vda1 ext4   100G  /

Disk: /dev/vda, Partition: /dev/vda1, Filesystem: ext4

Extension with growpart + resize2fs

Install growpart

apt install cloud-guest-utils -y   # Debian/Ubuntu
dnf install cloud-utils-growpart -y  # AlmaLinux/CentOS

Extend the partition

# Extend vda1 to maximum available space
growpart /dev/vda 1

Expected output:

CHANGED: partition=1 start=2048 old: size=209715167 end=209717215 new: size=528480223 end=528482271

Extend the ext4 filesystem

resize2fs /dev/vda1

Output:

resize2fs 1.46.5 (30-Dec-2021)
Filesystem at /dev/vda1 is mounted on /; on-line resizing required
old_desc_blocks = 13, new_desc_blocks = 32
The filesystem on /dev/vda1 is now 66060027 (4k) blocks long.

Verify

df -h /

Now shows the updated size.

XFS Filesystem (AlmaLinux/CentOS)

For XFS filesystems, use xfs_growfs instead of resize2fs:

# Extend the partition
growpart /dev/vda 1

# Extend the XFS filesystem (can be done while mounted)
xfs_growfs /

LVM (Logical Volume Manager)

If your VPS uses LVM (visible as dm-0 or vg0-lv0 in lsblk):

# Check LVM layout
pvdisplay
vgdisplay
lvdisplay

# Extend the physical volume
pvresize /dev/vda2

# Extend the logical volume to 100% of free space
lvextend -l +100%FREE /dev/vg0/lv0

# Extend the filesystem
resize2fs /dev/vg0/lv0    # ext4
# or
xfs_growfs /               # xfs

Add a secondary disk

If you added a second disk from the panel (e.g. /dev/vdb):

# Verify the disk is detected
lsblk | grep vdb

# Create filesystem
mkfs.ext4 /dev/vdb

# Create mount point
mkdir /mnt/data

# Manual mount
mount /dev/vdb /mnt/data

# Permanent mount (survives reboot)
echo '/dev/vdb /mnt/data ext4 defaults 0 2' >> /etc/fstab

Verify fstab:

mount -a   # mount everything from fstab without rebooting
df -h /mnt/data

Troubleshooting

growpart: "NOCHANGE: partition 1 is size..."

The physical disk has not been expanded yet. Verify in the VirtFusion panel that the resize is complete before proceeding. Sometimes a VPS reboot is required.

resize2fs: "Bad magic number in super-block"

The disk is not ext4. Use lsblk -f to verify the type and use the correct tool (xfs_growfs for XFS, btrfs filesystem resize for Btrfs).

Partition cannot be expanded

If the partition is not the last on the disk, growpart cannot expand it. In this case you need to act from rescue mode with gparted.

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