How to migrate a Droplet to a large disk and retain IP address

Question

I’m getting the absolute worst experience engaging with Digital Ocean technical support. It appears when we deployed our server it had a small disk. And the Digital Ocean service doesn’t allow you so resize your primary disk.

So we got another disk.

Now, two years on, the primary disk is running out of space creating temporary files so backups are failing.

I approached Digital Ocean support for help, but instead of coming up with a solution I am told:

It’s a self managed service. Gosh, I know that. That’s why I prepended my question with I’m willing to pay for help.
The quickest possible one liner answers. Seems that help desk ticket turnaround time is important here? What about more full briefs?
Suggestion to go read this and go read that. Especially a generic link to RSYNC.

What I need is help, not quick responses with brief answers.

The primary problem I told them about was that I have a two disk architecture problem that I’m trying to solve. That, for some reason, is beyond their capability to help me with.

Wow, I am really very close to over it. Any tips from the community? We spend over $500 a month with digital ocean but I’m thinking of taking my money elsewhere.

The cherry on cake was after making this post, I get this message:

Must have a tag. I add a tag.
Oops! Looks like you’re trying to post too frequently. Please try again later.

To big to fail? This is the service I’m sending.

Bobby · Answer

Hi there,

Indeed in order to upgrade your root partition, you need to upgrade your CPU and RAM as well.

In case that you don’t want the extra CPU and RAM, I could suggest two alternatives:

As the main problem that you are seeing is caused by a temporary file during backups, what you could do is to add a block storage and mount the temporary folder that holds the backup on that new disk. That way when the backup runs, it will generate the temporary file and store it on that block storage which will not consume the disk space on your root partition.
Create a new Droplet with the new size that meets your requirements and transfer your files over. Unfortunately, this would require an IP change.

The benefit of option 1 is that you will not have to add extra CPU and RAM to your Droplet and you will keep your current IP address. Also, you will be able to choose a specific size of your block storage so that it matches your exact requirements.

Regarding the problem that you noticed why posting the question, this is a known bug that is being worked on, thank you for bringing it up!

Let me know if you have any questions. Regards, Bobby

alexdo · Answer

Hello there

When you destroy a Droplet, its IP address is released back into the data center’s pool of available IPs. These are assigned randomly, so it’s very unlikely you’ll get that IP address back. However, when you rebuild a Droplet, the IP address is retained.

You can find more information here:

https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/how-to/rebuild/

Regards

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How to migrate a Droplet to a large disk and retain IP address

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