Root Disk
The local NVMe system drive that stores a virtual machine's operating system and boot files.
Root disks are local system drives used to store the operating system and essential files that allow a virtual machine to boot and run. In this article, you'll learn how they are provisioned in Hyperstack virtual machines, their performance characteristics, NVMe passthrough options, OS compatibility, datacenter availability, and how pricing is determined based on the selected VM flavor.
Overview
Each Hyperstack virtual machine is provisioned with a root disk to store the OS and critical system files. This disk is provided using local Non-Volatile Memory express (NVMe) storage, offering the lowest possible latency by avoiding network-based communication. Because the disk resides inside the system chassis, performance is extremely high, but this comes at the cost of durability in failure scenarios.
In the event of a system or disk failure, any data stored on the root disk will be lost when the VM is rescheduled to a new node. It's therefore essential to consider workload demands and risks before using this storage for critical data.
The disk is automatically mounted during deployment. For most flavors, its size is limited, as active workloads typically run on Ephemeral storage. Ephemeral storage offers faster speeds but lacks persistence. For data durability, use Shared Storage Volumes, which trade performance for redundancy.
The size of the root disk is determined by the selected flavor at the time of deployment and cannot be changed after the VM is created.
Please refer to the following page for details on disk configurations for each of our flavors:
NVMe Passthrough
NVMe passthrough enables a virtual machine (VM) to access and utilize a physical NVMe storage device directly. This direct communication between the VM and NVMe storage offers high-speed, low-latency access, bypassing the hypervisor.
NVMe passthrough is available for the 8x A100-80GB-PCIe w/ NVLink GPU flavor in CANADA-1 region.
On your virtual machine, you'll see this storage device represented as /dev/nvme0n1.
NVMe passthrough is currently exclusively available for contracted customers. For inquiries, please reach out to our team: click here to contact support.
Supported Operating Systems
Any Linux distribution that supports VirtIO-type devices, including Ubuntu, AlmaLinux, and Debian.
Datacenter Availability
Available in all regions on all GPU-enabled systems.
Pricing
Customers are billed based on the size of the root disk for the virtual machine flavor used.