Manipulate Persistent Disks

Create a Linux instance named ‘instance-1’ on Compute Engine, choose a zone in your nearest region, and leave all other settings as default.

Using gcloud commands, extend the size of your ‘instance-1’ root disk to 20GB.

gcloud compute disks resize instance-1 --zone (YOUR_ZONE) --size 20

SSH into your ‘instance-1’ instance.

Without shutting down your machine, extend your root disk volume to use the new space.

First, view your disk partition with sudo lsblk

Increase the partition to take the entire size of the disk

sudo growpart /dev/sda 1  

Then increase the file system in the same manner

sudo resize2fs /dev/sda1  

Create a new Compute Engine instance using the Windows Server 2016 image named ‘windows’. Create it in a zone in your nearest region. Leave all other settings as default, and note which zone you’ve created the machine in.

Using the web console, create a new SSD persistent disk called ‘new-disk’, make it 20GB in size, and attach it to your Windows instance.

From VM Instances in Compute Engine, click on your ‘windows’ instance.

Click Edit.

Underneath Additional Disks, click Add Item.

Click the drop-down menu under Name, and select Create Disk.

Name the disk ‘new-disk’.

Set Disk Type to SSD persistent disk

Click None (blank disk) in the source type tabs.

Set Size to 20.

Click Create.

Back the Additional disks drop-down menu, select ‘new-disk’ from the Name drop-down.

Save changes to your instance at the very bottom Save button.

RDP into your Windows instance and initialize/attach your new disk.

In Compute Engine VM Instances, Set Windows password by clicking the drop-down menu next to RDP and click ’Set Windows Password’, leave username as admin and click SET. Copy and paste the provided password for reference.

RDP into Windows method with your preferred method (local client, Chrome extension, etc).

Enter your password from above when prompted.

Go to Disk Management by right-clicking the Start Menu and clicking on Disk Management.

Right-click on the text of ‘Disk 1 - Unknown’, and click Initialize Disk.

Select GPT for the partition style, and click OK.

Now right click on the storage amount to the right of the ‘Disk 1 - Basic’ text, and click ‘New Simple Volume’.

Click Next.

Leave size as defaults and click Next.

Assign drive letter of D, and click Next.

Change the Volume label to ‘New Disk’, leave other settings as default, and click Next.

Click Finish.

Open Windows Explorer, and click This PC to confirm the new disk is shows as drive D.