Attach durable block storage to a TPU VM

A TPU VM includes a 100 GiB boot disk. For some scenarios, your TPU VM might need additional storage for training or preprocessing. You can add a Google Cloud Hyperdisk or Persistent Disk (PD) volume to expand your local disk capacity.

For the highest performance and advanced features, Google recommends using Hyperdisk if it's available for your TPU. Otherwise, use Persistent Disk. For more information about block storage options in Compute Engine, see Choose a disk type .

TPU support for Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk

The following table shows the supported disk types for each TPU version:

TPU version	Supported disk types	Maximum PDs per VM (includes the boot disk)
v6e	Hyperdisk Balanced Hyperdisk ML	PDs are not supported by v6e
v5p	Balanced Persistent Disk	128
v5e	Balanced Persistent Disk	128
v4	Balanced Persistent Disk	128
v3	Balanced Persistent Disk	128
v2	Balanced Persistent Disk	128

Access modes

You can configure a disk attached to a TPU in single-writer or read-only mode, as shown in the following table:

Access mode

Description

Value in the Compute Engine API

Value in the Cloud TPU API

Supported disk types

Single-writer mode

This is the default access mode. Allows the disk to be attached to at most one instance at any time. The instance has read-write access to the disk.

READ_WRITE_SINGLE

read-write

Hyperdisk Balanced
Hyperdisk ML
Balanced Persistent Disk

Read-only mode

Enables simultaneous attachments to multiple instances in read-only mode. Instances can't write to the disk in this mode. Required for read-only sharing.

READ_ONLY_MANY

read-only

Hyperdisk Balanced
Balanced Persistent Disk

You can configure a disk attached to a single-host TPU (for example, v6e-8, v5p-8, or v5litepod-8) in single-writer or read-only mode.

When you attach a disk to a multi-host TPU, the disk is attached to each VM in that TPU. To prevent two or more TPU VMs from writing to a disk at the same time, you must configure all disks attached to a multi-host TPU as read-only. Read-only disks are useful for storing a dataset for processing on a TPU slice.

Prerequisites

You need to have a Google Cloud account and project set up before using the following procedures. For more information, see Set up the Cloud TPU environment .

Create a disk

Use the following command to create a disk:

 $  
 
gcloud  
compute  
disks  
create  
 DISK_NAME 
  
 \ 
  
--size  
 DISK_SIZE 
  
 \ 
  
--zone  
 ZONE 
  
 \ 
  
--type  
 DISK_TYPE

Command flag descriptions

DISK_NAME: The name of the new disk.
DISK_SIZE: The size of the new disk. The value must be a whole number followed by a size unit of GB for gibibyte, or TB for tebibyte. If no size unit is specified, GB is assumed.
ZONE: The name of the zone in which to create the new disk. This must be the same zone used to create the TPU.
DISK_TYPE: The type of disk . Use one of the following values: hyperdisk-balanced , hyperdisk-ml , or pd-balanced .

For Hyperdisk, you can optionally specify the --access-mode flag with one of the following values:

READ_WRITE_SINGLE : Read-write access from one instance. This is the default.
READ_ONLY_MANY : (Hyperdisk ML only) Concurrent read-only access from multiple instances.

For more information about creating disks, see Create a new Hyperdisk volume and Create a new Persistent Disk volume .

Attach a disk

You can attach a disk volume to your TPU VM when you create the TPU VM, or you can attach one after the TPU VM is created.

Attach a disk when you create a TPU VM

Use the --data-disk flag to attach a disk volume when you create a TPU VM.

If you are creating a multi-host TPU, you must specify mode=read-only ( Hyperdisk ML and Balanced Persistent Disk only). If you are creating a single-host TPU, you can specify mode=read-only ( Hyperdisk ML and Balanced Persistent Disk only) or mode=read-write . For more information, see Access modes .

The following example shows how to attach a disk volume when creating a TPU VM using queued resources :

 $  
 
gcloud  
compute  
tpus  
queued-resources  
create  
 QR_NAME 
  
 \ 
  
--node-id = 
 TPU_NAME 
  
--project  
 PROJECT_ID 
  
 \ 
  
--zone = 
 ZONE 
  
 \ 
  
--accelerator-type = 
 ACCELERATOR_TYPE 
  
 \ 
  
--runtime-version = 
 TPU_SOFTWARE_VERSION 
  
 \ 
  
--data-disk  
 source 
 = 
projects/ PROJECT_ID 
/zones/ ZONE 
/disks/ DISK_NAME 
,mode = 
 MODE

Command flag descriptions

QR_NAME: The name of the queued resource request.
TPU_NAME: The name of the new TPU.
PROJECT_ID: The ID of the Google Cloud project in which to create the TPU.
ZONE: The name of the zone in which to create the Cloud TPU.
ACCELERATOR_TYPE: The accelerator type specifies the version and size of the Cloud TPU you want to create. For more information about supported accelerator types for each TPU version, see TPU versions .
TPU_SOFTWARE_VERSION: The TPU software version .
DISK_NAME: The name of the disk to attach to the TPU VM.
MODE: The mode of the disk. Mode must be one of: read-only or read-write . If not specified, the default mode is read-write . For more information, see Access mode .

You can also attach a disk when you create a TPU VM using the gcloud compute tpus tpu-vm create command:

 $  
 
gcloud  
compute  
tpus  
tpu-vm  
create  
 TPU_NAME 
  
 \ 
  
--project  
 PROJECT_ID 
  
 \ 
  
--zone = 
 ZONE 
  
 \ 
  
--accelerator-type = 
 ACCELERATOR_TYPE 
  
 \ 
  
--version = 
 TPU_SOFTWARE_VERSION 
  
 \ 
  
--data-disk  
 source 
 = 
projects/ PROJECT_ID 
/zones/ ZONE 
/disks/ DISK_NAME 
,mode = 
 MODE

Command flag descriptions

TPU_NAME: The name of the new TPU.
PROJECT_ID: The ID of the Google Cloud project in which to create the TPU.
ZONE: The name of the zone in which to create the Cloud TPU.
ACCELERATOR_TYPE: The accelerator type specifies the version and size of the Cloud TPU you want to create. For more information about supported accelerator types for each TPU version, see TPU versions .
TPU_SOFTWARE_VERSION: The TPU software version .
DISK_NAME: The name of the disk to attach to the TPU VM.
MODE: The mode of the disk. Mode must be one of: read-only or read-write . If not specified, the default mode is read-write . For more information, see Access modes .

Attach a disk to an existing TPU VM

Use the gcloud alpha compute tpus tpu-vm attach-disk command to attach a disk to an existing TPU VM.

 $  
 
gcloud  
alpha  
compute  
tpus  
tpu-vm  
attach-disk  
 TPU_NAME 
  
 \ 
  
--zone = 
 ZONE 
  
 \ 
  
--disk = 
 DISK_NAME 
  
 \ 
  
--mode = 
 MODE

Command flag descriptions

TPU_NAME: The name of the TPU.
ZONE: The zone where the Cloud TPU is located.
DISK_NAME: The name of the disk to attach to the TPU VM.
MODE: The mode of the disk. Mode must be one of: read-only or read-write . If not specified, the default mode is read-write . This must correspond with the access mode of the disk.

If your VM shuts down for any reason, you might need to mount the disk after you restart the VM. For information about enabling your disk to automatically mount on VM restart, see Configure automatic mounting on system restart .

For more information about automatically deleting a disk, see Modify a Hyperdisk and Modify a Persistent Disk .

Format and mount a disk

If you attached a new, blank disk to your TPU VM, before you can use it you must format and mount the disk. If you attached a disk that already contains data, then you must mount the disk before you can use it.

For more information about formatting and mounting a non-boot disk, see Format and mount a non-boot disk on a Linux VM .

Connect to your TPU VM using SSH:
```
 $  
 
gcloud  
compute  
tpus  
tpu-vm  
ssh  
 TPU_NAME 
  
--zone  
 ZONE 
```
If you are using a multi-host TPU this command will connect you to the first TPU in the TPU slice (also called worker 0).
From the TPU VM, list the disks attached to the TPU VM:
```
  ( 
vm ) 
$  
 
sudo  
lsblk
```
The output from the lsblk command looks similar to the following:
```
NAME    MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
loop0     7:0    0  55.5M  1 loop /snap/core18/1997
loop1     7:1    0  67.6M  1 loop /snap/lxd/20326
loop2     7:2    0  32.3M  1 loop /snap/snapd/11588
loop3     7:3    0  32.1M  1 loop /snap/snapd/11841
loop4     7:4    0  55.4M  1 loop /snap/core18/2066
sda       8:0    0   300G  0 disk
├─sda1    8:1    0 299.9G  0 part /
├─sda14   8:14   0     4M  0 part
└─sda15   8:15   0   106M  0 part /boot/efi
sdb       8:16   0    10G  0 disk
```
In this example, sda is the boot disk and sdb is the name of the newly attached disk. The name of the attached disk depends on how many disks are attached to the VM.

When using a multi-host TPU, you need to mount the disk on all TPU VMs in the TPU slice. The name of the disk should be the same for all TPU VMs, but it is not guaranteed. For example, if you detach and then re-attach the disk, the device name is incremented, changing from sdb to sdc .
If the disk hasn't been formatted, format the attached disk using the mkfs tool . Replace sdb if your disk has a different device name. Replace ext4 if you want to use a different file system.

Caution: This command deletes all data from the specified disk, so make sure that you specify the disk device correctly.
```
  ( 
vm ) 
$  
 
sudo  
mkfs. ext4 
  
-m  
 0 
  
-E  
 lazy_itable_init 
 = 
 0 
,lazy_journal_init = 
 0 
,discard  
/dev/ sdb 
```
Create a directory to mount the disk on the TPU.

If you are using a single-host TPU, run the following command from your TPU to create a directory to mount the disk:
```
  ( 
vm ) 
$  
 
sudo  
mkdir  
-p  
/mnt/disks/ MOUNT_DIR 
```
Replace MOUNT_DIR with the directory at which to mount disk.

If you are using a multi-host TPU, run the following command outside of your TPU VM. This command will create the directory on all TPU VMs in the TPU slice.
```
  ( 
vm ) 
$  
 
gcloud  
compute  
tpus  
tpu-vm  
ssh  
 TPU_NAME 
  
--worker = 
all  
--command = 
 "sudo mkdir -p /mnt/disks/ MOUNT_DIR 
" 
```

Mount the disk to your TPU using the mount tool .

If you are using a single-host TPU, run the following command to mount the disk on your TPU VM:

  ( 
vm ) 
$  
 
sudo  
mount  
-o  
discard,defaults  
/dev/ sdb 
  
/mnt/disks/ MOUNT_DIR

If you are using a multi-host TPU, run the following command outside of your TPU VM. It will mount the disk on all TPU VMs in your TPU slice.

  ( 
vm ) 
$  
 
gcloud  
compute  
tpus  
tpu-vm  
ssh  
 TPU_NAME 
  
--worker = 
all  
--command = 
 "sudo mount -o discard,defaults /dev/ sdb 
/mnt/disks/ MOUNT_DIR 
"

Configure read and write permissions on the disk. For example, the following command grants write access to the disk for all users.
```
  ( 
vm ) 
$  
 
sudo  
chmod  
a+w  
/mnt/disks/ MOUNT_DIR 
```

Unmount a disk

To unmount (detach) a disk from your TPU VM, run the following command:

 $  
 
gcloud  
alpha  
compute  
tpus  
tpu-vm  
detach-disk  
 TPU_NAME 
  
 \ 
  
--zone = 
 ZONE 
  
 \ 
  
--disk = 
 DISK_NAME

Command flag descriptions

TPU_NAME: The name of the TPU.
ZONE: The zone where the Cloud TPU is located.
DISK_NAME: The name of the disk to detach from the TPU VM.

Clean up

Delete your Cloud TPU and Compute Engine resources when you are done with them.

Disconnect from the Cloud TPU, if you have not already done so:
```
  ( 
vm ) 
$  
 
 exit 
```
Your prompt should now be username@projectname , showing you are in the Cloud Shell.

Delete your Cloud TPU:

 $  
 
gcloud  
compute  
tpus  
tpu-vm  
delete  
 TPU_NAME 
  
 \ 
  
--zone = 
 ZONE

Verify that the Cloud TPU has been deleted. The deletion might take several minutes.

 $  
 
gcloud  
compute  
tpus  
tpu-vm  
list  
--zone = 
 ZONE

Verify that the disk was automatically deleted when the TPU VM was deleted by listing all disks in the zone where you created the disk:
```
 $  
 
gcloud  
compute  
disks  
list  
--filter = 
 "zone:( ZONE 
)" 
```
If the disk wasn't deleted when the TPU VM was deleted, use the following command to delete it:
```
 $  
 
gcloud  
compute  
disks  
delete  
 DISK_NAME 
  
 \ 
  
--zone  
 ZONE 
```