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Detach Cloud Block Storage

Learn how to safely detach Cloud Block Storage from your Liquid Web VPS server. Follow our step-by-step guide to prevent data loss before moving.
2 min read

Introduction

Detaching a Cloud Block Storage drive is a necessary step when upgrading your storage capacity or moving the drive to a different VPS server. This action safely severs the connection between the storage volume and its currently attached server.

CRITICAL: Potential Data Loss
Before detaching the drive in the Liquid Web portal, you MUST first unmount the device at the operating system level from within your server. Failing to unmount the drive prior to detachment can result in severe data corruption or permanent data loss.

Prerequisites

  • Access to your active Liquid Web account.
  • A Cloud VPS server with a Cloud Block Storage volume currently attached.
  • The storage volume must already be unmounted from within the server’s operating system.

Step by step instructions

  1. Log into your Liquid Web account.
  2. Select Storage from the left navigation menu, then click Cloud Block Storage.
  3. Click on the specific storage device you want to detach.
  4. Locate the hostname of the server currently utilizing the drive. You can find this under the Attached server section.
  5. Click the Detach from server button located to the right of the attached server’s name.

Next Steps

Once your drive has been successfully and safely detached, you are ready to proceed with your workflow. Check out these guides for your next steps:

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

No. Detaching a drive is similar to safely unplugging a USB flash drive from your computer. It simply removes the connection to the server. All of your data remains safely stored on the block volume itself, ready to be accessed when you attach it to a new server.

Your server’s operating system is constantly reading and writing data to attached drives in the background. If you forcefully detach the drive from the Liquid Web portal while the server is still actively using it, any incomplete data transfers will be instantly cut off, which causes file corruption. Unmounting tells the server to safely finish its current tasks and stop interacting with the drive.

Unmounting is done directly via your server’s command line or interface, not the Liquid Web portal. For Linux servers, this typically involves logging in via SSH and using the umount command. For Windows servers, you will use the Disk Management utility.

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