Volumes Overview

This section describes the different volume types in Exasol.

Volume types and purposes

Data in an Exasol database is stored on volumes that are assigned to storage disks. For more information about storage disks, see Storage Overview.

Exasol databases have two volume types with different purposes: data volumes and archive volumes. A typical Exasol setup contains at least one data volume and one archive volume.

Volume purpose Volume type Description
Storing persistent data of a database Data

  • The Volume Size parameter of the volume determines the maximum size of the volume.

  • The actual size of the volume increases or decreases depending on the data stored.

  • Persistent data volumes usually have redundancy level 2.
Storing compressed backups of a database Archive
  • There are two kinds of archive volumes:
    • Local archive volume - stored in the Exasol cluster.
    • Remote archive volume - stored on an external user-managed service such as Amazon S3 or an ftp server.

  • The Volume Size parameter of the volume determines the maximum size of the volume.

  • The volume size of a local archive volume cannot be decreased, and it can only be increased manually.

  • Expired backups on local archive volumes are automatically removed if the volume is running out of space.

  • Archive volumes usually have redundancy level 2.

Storing temporary data Data

  • Temporary data volumes are automatically created when a database instance is started, and automatically deleted when the database instance is stopped.

  • The initial size when the volume is created is 1 GiB.

  • The actual size of the volume increases or decreases depending on the data stored.

  • Temporary data volumes have redundancy level 1.

When a database instance is started, Exasol automatically creates a temporary data volume for storing the temporary tablespace of the database. This volume is automatically deleted when the database is stopped.

You can view the volumes in your Exasol system by going to Services > EXAStorage:

Volume nodes

When you create a persistent data volume or a local archive volume, you set the number of master nodes that the volume will use and assign them to the volume. The master nodes are the active nodes in the cluster.

For example: in a cluster that will have 4 active nodes and 1 reserve node (4+1), the number of master nodes is 4.

For persistent data volumes, the number of master nodes must match the number of active nodes you set when you create the database.

Manage volume capacity

Data volumes grow automatically as long as enough disk space is available, typically because tables grow due to insert statements.

To shrink a volume, use the action shrink on the EXASolution Instance page.

Increase disk space

To increase storage capacity you can either add new disks to existing nodes or add new nodes to the cluster. For more information, see Increase Storage Volume.

In a virtualized environment, the existing virtual disks can be enlarged.