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I have droplets that I will reimage. Since all the data is being wiped anyways, can we reduce the disk size?

Posted on October 7, 2025

I will be shutting down a few of my droplets. However we want to keep the IP addresses of those droplets, so instead of destroying, I simply shut it off but kept it in my account.

I’d like to at least resize these to the smallest tier. I understand that normally a resize that preserves the data on the disk cannot have a smaller target disk size.

However none of the data on my droplets needs to be preserved and I’m happy to completely wipe it as long as the IP address is preserved.

Are there any options to resize the droplet in this case?



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Hi there,

You can’t reduce the disk size of an existing Droplet:

https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/concepts/downsizing-considerations/

The only workaround is to create a new smaller droplet and move the IP by assigning it as a Floating IP, then destroy the old one. Direct disk downsizing isn’t supported.

If you plan to downgrade in the future, you can usually only resize the RAM and CPU.

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