What's the difference between Disk and Block Storage

Posted on June 21, 2020

So I’m setting up a cluster on DOKS and I see that I have a total cluster capacity of 180 GB Disk Capacity, however, underneath my monthly projected cost I see this message: “This price does not include load balancer or block storage costs.”

So I’m a bit confused about the difference between the 180 GB Disk capacity and block storage.

So I would like to know what the difference is if any, and if not, why that message.

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Bobby

June 21, 2020

Accepted Answer

Hi there @ominibyte,

There is actually a difference, the block storage is used for Persistent Volume Claims, you can take a look at the documentation on how to do that:

https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/kubernetes/how-to/add-volumes/

The 180GB disk space that you are referring to is the disk space of your Kubernetes nodes and where everything else gets stored in a case that you do not add PVC.

For more information, I would recommend taking a look a the official Kubernetes storage concepts here:

https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/storage/

Hope that this helps! Regards, Bobby

Conrad Taylor

June 21, 2020

This comment has been deleted

Conrad Taylor

June 21, 2020

Hi, the 180GB storage here is referring to a resource similar to a node within your cluster. However, it works independently of any one of your pods running within that cluster. Furthermore, the size of each node within your cluster isn’t 180GB but this 180GB typically refers to your database storage.

Next, I would highly recommend doing a bit of resource planning to determine what you actually need for your production deployment. Then read and understanding the DO resource pricing which can be found here. Gotta run and all the best.

–

Think different and code well,

-Conrad