When you create a compute instance, you can create and attach additional non-boot disks to the instance at the same time. You can also choose existing disks to attach as non-boot disks .
If you want to create a disk in multi-writer mode, you can't create the disk at the same time that you create the instance. You must create the disk first, then you can attach the disk to the instance.
Before you begin
- If you haven't already, set up authentication
.
Authentication verifies your identity for access to Google Cloud services and APIs. To run
code or samples from a local development environment, you can authenticate to
Compute Engine by selecting one of the following options:
Select the tab for how you plan to use the samples on this page:
Console
When you use the Google Cloud console to access Google Cloud services and APIs, you don't need to set up authentication.
gcloud
-
Install the Google Cloud CLI. After installation, initialize the Google Cloud CLI by running the following command:
gcloud init
If you're using an external identity provider (IdP), you must first sign in to the gcloud CLI with your federated identity .
- Set a default region and zone .
REST
To use the REST API samples on this page in a local development environment, you use the credentials you provide to the gcloud CLI.
Install the Google Cloud CLI. After installation, initialize the Google Cloud CLI by running the following command:
gcloud init
If you're using an external identity provider (IdP), you must first sign in to the gcloud CLI with your federated identity .
For more information, see Authenticate for using REST in the Google Cloud authentication documentation.
-
Required roles
To get the permissions that
you need to create an instance with added non-boot disks,
ask your administrator to grant you the Compute Instance Admin (v1)
( roles/compute.instanceAdmin.v1
)
IAM role on the project.
For more information about granting roles, see Manage access to projects, folders, and organizations
.
This predefined role contains the permissions required to create an instance with added non-boot disks. To see the exact permissions that are required, expand the Required permissionssection:
Required permissions
The following permissions are required to create an instance with added non-boot disks:
-
compute.instances.create
on the project - To create a new disk for the instance:
compute.disks.create
on the project
You might also be able to get these permissions with custom roles or other predefined roles .
Create an instance with new additional non-boot disks
To create an instance that has additional non-boot disks created and attached, follow these steps:
Console
-
In the Google Cloud console, go to the Create an instancepage.
If prompted, select your project and click Continue.
The Create an instancepage appears and displays the Machine configurationpane.
-
In the Machine configurationpane, do the following:
- In the Namefield, specify a name for your instance. For more information, see Resource naming convention .
-
Optional: In the Zonefield, select a zone for this instance.
The default selection is Any. If you don't change this default selection, then Google automatically chooses a zone for you based on machine type and availability.
-
Select the machine family for your instance. The Google Cloud console then displays the machine series that are available for your selected machine family. The following machine family options are available:
- General purpose
- Compute optimized
- Memory optimized
- Storage optimized
- GPUs
-
In the Seriescolumn, select the machine series for your instance.
If you selected GPUsas the machine family in the previous step, then select the GPU typethat you want. The machine series is then automatically selected for the selected GPU type.
-
In the Machine typesection, select the machine type for your instance.
-
In the navigation menu, click OS and storage. In the Operating system and storagepane that appears, complete the following steps.
To learn more about the parameters that you can configure while adding new disks, see About Persistent Disk and About Google Cloud Hyperdisk .
-
To configure your boot disk, click Change. The Boot diskpane appears and displays the Public imagestab.
-
Configure the data source for the boot disk in one of the following ways:
-
To choose a public image as the data source for your boot disk, in the Public imagestab, specify the following:
- In the Operating systemlist, select the OS type.
- In the Versionlist, select the OS version.
- In the Boot disk typelist, select the type of the boot disk.
- In the Size (GB)field, specify the size of the boot disk.
-
To choose a custom image as the data source for your boot disk, click Custom imagesand then, in the Custom imagestab that appears, specify the following:
- To select the image project, click Change, and then select the project that contains the image.
- In the Imagelist, select the image that you want to import.
- In the Boot disk typelist, select the type of the boot disk.
- In the Size (GB)field, specify the size of the boot disk.
-
To choose a standard snapshot as the data source for your boot disk, click Snapshotsand then, in the Snapshotstab that appears, specify the following:
- In the Snapshotlist, select the snapshot.
- In the Boot disk typelist, select the type of the boot disk.
- In the Size (GB)field, specify the size of the boot disk.
-
To choose an archive snapshot as the data source for your boot disk, click Archive snapshotsand then, in the Archive snapshotstab that appears, specify the following:
- In the Archive snapshotlist, select the archive snapshot.
- In the Boot disk typelist, select the type of the boot disk.
- In the Size (GB)field, specify the size of the boot disk.
-
To choose an existing disk as your boot disk, click Existing disks. Then, in the Existing diskstab that appears, select an existing regional Persistent Disk or Hyperdisk Balanced High Availability volume in the Disklist.
-
-
Optional: For advanced configuration options, expand the Show advanced configurationssection.
-
To confirm your boot disk options and return to the Operating system and storagepane, click Select.
-
To create a new non-boot disk and attach it to your instance, in the Additional storage and VM backupssection, click Add new disk.
In the Add new diskpane that appears, do the following:
- In the Namefield, specify a name for the non-boot disk.
- In the Disk source typelist, select the source type for the non-boot disk.
- In the Disk typelist, select a type for the non-boot disk.
- In the Sizefield, specify the size of the non-boot disk.
- In the Attachment settingssection, do the following:
- In the Modefield, select the disk attachment mode.
- In the Deletion rulefiled, select an option to specify what happens to the disk when the instance is deleted.
Repeat this step for each non-boot disk that you want to create and attach to your instance.
-
-
In the navigation menu, click Data protection. In the Data protectionpane that appears, specify how you want to back up and replicate the data for your instance by doing the following.
- To specify how you want to back up data, select an option for Back up your data.
-
To specify how you want to replicate data, do the following:
- If you want new disks for the instance to be synchronously replicated in a second zone by using regional disks types , select the Regional diskscheckbox.
- If you want disks for the instance to be replicated in a second region using Persistent Disk Asynchronous Replication , select the Asynchronous replicationcheckbox.
-
If you only want to use the specified data protection options on non-boot disks, select the Exclude boot diskscheckbox.
-
In the navigation menu, click Networking. In the Networkingpane that appears, do the following:
- Go to the Firewallsection.
-
To permit HTTP or HTTPS traffic to the instance, select Allow HTTP trafficor Allow HTTPS traffic.
The Compute Engine adds a network tag to your instance and creates the corresponding ingress firewall rule that allows all incoming traffic on
tcp:80
(HTTP) ortcp:443
(HTTPS). The network tag associates the firewall rule with the instance. For more information, see Firewall rules overview in the Cloud Next Generation Firewall documentation.
-
Optional: Specify other configuration options. For more information, see Configuration options during instance creation .
-
To create and start the instance, click Create.
gcloud
-
In the Google Cloud console, activate Cloud Shell.
At the bottom of the Google Cloud console, a Cloud Shell session starts and displays a command-line prompt. Cloud Shell is a shell environment with the Google Cloud CLI already installed and with values already set for your current project. It can take a few seconds for the session to initialize.
-
Run the
gcloud compute instances create
command to create an instance with additional non-boot disks.You can add up to 127 non-boot disks while you're creating your instance. Specify the
--create-disk
flag for each non-boot disk you create.To create non-boot disks from a public or stock image, specify the
image
orimage-family
andimage-project
properties with the--create-disk
flag. To create a blank disk, don't include these properties.You can optionally include properties for:
- Disk size: use the
--size
property. - Disk type: use the
--type
property. - Regional disks:
include the
replica-zones
property.
gcloud compute instances create INSTANCE_NAME \ --zone= ZONE \ --image-project= IMAGE_PROJECT \ IMAGE_FLAG \ --create-disk DISK_IMAGE ,image-project= DISK_IMAGE_PROJECT ,size= SIZE_GB ,type= DISK_TYPE \ --create-disk device-name= DISK_NAME ,replica-zones=^:^ ZONE : REMOTE-ZONE ,boot=false
Replace the following:
-
INSTANCE_NAME
: name of the new instance -
ZONE
: zone to create the instance in -
IMAGE_PROJECT
: project containing the image -
IMAGE_FLAG
: specify one of the following:-
Use the
--image IMAGE_NAME
flag to specify a specific version of a public or custom image. For example,--image debian-12-bookworm-v20241112
. -
Use the
--image-family IMAGE_FAMILY_NAME
flag to specify an image family . This creates the instance that uses the most recent, non-deprecated OS image in the image family. For example, if you specify--image-family debian-12
, then Compute Engine uses the latest version of the OS image in the Debian 12 image family when creating the instance.
-
-
For additional disks, replace the following:
-
DISK_IMAGE
: Specify one of the following:-
image= DISK_IMAGE_NAME
: name of the image that you want to use when creating a non-boot disk -
image-family= DISK_IMAGE_FAMILY
>: an image family to use when creating a non-boot disk
-
-
DISK_IMAGE_PROJECT
: an image project to which the disk image belongs -
SIZE_GB
: Optional: size of the non-boot disk -
DISK_TYPE
: Optional: full or partial URL for the type of the diskFor example,
https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/ PROJECT_ID /zones/ ZONE /diskTypes/hyperdisk-balanced
. To view the available disk types in one or more zones, use thegcloud compute disk-types list --zones= ZONE_LIST
command . ReplaceZONE_LIST
with a comma-separated list of zones. -
DISK_NAME
: Optional: the disk name displayed to the guest OS after the instance is created. -
REMOTE_ZONE
: the zone where the disk should be replicated to
For blank disks, don't specify the
image
,image-project
, orimage-family
parameters.For zonal disks, don't specify the disk property
replica-zones
. -
- Disk size: use the
Terraform
To generate the Terraform code, you can use the Equivalent codecomponent in the Google Cloud console.- In the Google Cloud console, go to the VM instancespage.
- Click Create instance.
- Specify the parameters you want.
- At the top or bottom of the page, click Equivalent code, and then click the Terraformtab to view the Terraform code.
Go
Before trying this sample, follow the Go setup instructions in the Compute Engine quickstart using client libraries . For more information, see the Compute Engine Go API reference documentation .
To authenticate to Compute Engine, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment .
Java
Before trying this sample, follow the Java setup instructions in the Compute Engine quickstart using client libraries . For more information, see the Compute Engine Java API reference documentation .
To authenticate to Compute Engine, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment .
Node.js
Before trying this sample, follow the Node.js setup instructions in the Compute Engine quickstart using client libraries . For more information, see the Compute Engine Node.js API reference documentation .
To authenticate to Compute Engine, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment .
Python
Before trying this sample, follow the Python setup instructions in the Compute Engine quickstart using client libraries . For more information, see the Compute Engine Python API reference documentation .
To authenticate to Compute Engine, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment .
REST
You can create up to 127 non-boot disks at the time you create an
instance by using the initializeParams
property for each additional
disk. Create additional disks with a public or private image.
To add a blank disk, define the initializeParams
entry with no sourceImage
value.
Include the disk property replicaZones
to create
regional disks instead of zonal disks.
POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID
/zones/ZONE
/instances { "machineType":"zones/ MACHINE_TYPE_ZONE /machineTypes/ MACHINE_TYPE ", "name":"VM_NAME
", "disks":[ { "initializeParams":{ "sourceImage":"projects/ IMAGE_PROJECT /global/images/ IMAGE " }, "boot":true }, { "initializeParams":{ "diskSizeGb":" SIZE_GB ", "sourceImage":"projects/ DISK_IMAGE_PROJECT /global/images/ DISK_IMAGE ", "diskType":" DISK_TYPE " } }, { "initializeParams":{ "diskSizeGb":" SIZE_GB ", "diskType":" DISK_TYPE " }, }, { "boot": false, "deviceName":" DISK_NAME ", "initializeParams": { "diskType": " DISK_TYPE ", "replicaZones": [ "projects/ PROJECT_ID /zones/ ZONE ", "projects/ PROJECT_ID /zones/ REMOTE_ZONE " ] } } ], "networkInterfaces":[ { "network":"global/networks/ NETWORK_NAME " } ], "shieldedInstanceConfig":{ "enableSecureBoot":" ENABLE_SECURE_BOOT " } }
Replace the following:
-
PROJECT_ID
: ID of the project to create the VM in -
ZONE
: zone to create the VM in -
MACHINE_TYPE_ZONE
: zone containing the machine type to use for the new VM -
MACHINE_TYPE
: machine type, predefined or custom , for the new VM -
VM_NAME
: name of the new VM -
IMAGE_PROJECT
: project containing the image
For example, if you specifydebian-10
as the image family, specifydebian-cloud
as the image project. -
IMAGE
: specify one of the following:-
IMAGE
: a specific version of a public imageFor example,
"sourceImage": "projects/debian-cloud/global/images/debian-10-buster-v20200309"
-
IMAGE_FAMILY
: an image familyThis creates the VM from the most recent, non-deprecated OS image. For example, if you specify
"sourceImage": "projects/debian-cloud/global/images/family/debian-10"
, Compute Engine creates a VM from the latest version of the OS image in theDebian 10
image family.
-
-
For additional disks, replace the following:
-
SIZE_GB
: disk size -
DISK_IMAGE
or -
DISK_IMAGE_FAMILY
: Specify either a source image or image family for the non-boot disk:-
DISK_IMAGE
: name of the image that you want to use as a non-boot disk. For example,"sourceImage": "projects/ DISK_IMAGE_PROJECT /global/images/ DISK_IMAGE "
. -
DISK_IMAGE_FAMILY
: an image family to use as a non-boot disk. For example,"sourceImage": "projects/ DISK_IMAGE_PROJECT /global/images/family/ DISK_IMAGE_FAMILY "
.
-
-
DISK_TYPE
: full or partial URL for the type of the disk type. For example,https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/ PROJECT_ID /zones/ ZONE /diskTypes/hyperdisk-balanced
. -
DISK_NAME
: Optional. The disk name displayed to the guest OS after the VM is created. -
REMOTE_ZONE
: the zone to replicate the regional disk to
For blank disks, don't specify the
sourceImage
property.For zonal disks, don't specify the
replicaZones
property. -
-
NETWORK_NAME
: the VPC network that you want to use for the VM. You can specifydefault
to use your default network. -
ENABLE_SECURE_BOOT
: Optional: If you chose an image that supports Shielded VM features, Compute Engine, by default, enables the virtual trusted platform module (vTPM) and integrity monitoring . Compute Engine does not enable Secure Boot by default.If you specify
true
forenableSecureBoot
, Compute Engine creates a VM with all three Shielded VM features enabled. After Compute Engine starts your VM, to modify Shielded VM options, you must stop the VM.
Format and mount the disks before using them.