How to Add Drive In Windows server running on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

Well, few days back, i got a requirement to create a new drive for one of the customer who were running their windows instance in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. They had an existing C:/ drive and i had to add a new drive say D:/. For complete overview of Block Volume in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, the best pace to look is Oracle Documentations https://docs.cloud.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Block/Concepts/overview.htm#Overview_of_Block_Volume. Well, the process remains the same on how we add a block storage in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure but when it comes to Oracle Cloud windows server, there are some extra steps which we need to perform.

Go to the  Oracle cloud infrastructure console login page

 

1.      Create a block volume of desired size

 

I created it for size 256 GB

 

 

       2.      Attach the block volume to the windows instance

  

        

 

 

                 

 Once the volume is attached to the instance, we need to connect to the volume in the windows server.

3. Connecting to Your Windows Instance from a Remote Desktop Client

 

Open the Remote Desktop client.

In the Computer field, enter the public IP address that we retrieved from the Console.

 The User name is opc. Depending on the Remote Desktop client you are using, you might have to connect to the instance before you can enter this credential.

Click Connect to start the session.

 Accept the certificate if you are prompted to do so.

 Enter the initial password that you retrieved from the Console. You will be prompted to   change the password as soon as you log in.

 Your new password must be at least 12 characters long and must comply with Microsoft's password policy.

 Press Enter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 On your Windows instance, open the iSCSI Initiator.

 For example: Open Server Manager, click Tools, and select iSCSI Initiator

 

 

 

 

 In the iSCSI Initiator Properties dialog box, click the Discovery tab.

 Click Discover Portal.

n 

 

 

1 

Note:-Block volume IP address and port, we can get it from the cloud console. Click the Actions icon (three dots) next to the volume you just attached and then click iSCSI Commands and Information.

The iSCSI Commands and Information dialog box opens. Notice that the dialog box displays specific identifying information about your volume (such as IP address and port) as well as the iSCSI commands that you can use.

 

1.     

 

 

 In the Discovered Targets region, select the volume IQN.

Click Connect and then click OK to close the dialog.

You are now ready to format (if needed) and mount the volume. To get a list of mountable iSCSI devices on the instance, in Server Manager, click File and Storage Services and then click Disks.

The 256 GB disk is displayed in the list.

1.     

 

 Click on File and storage Services

 

This completes the addition of one new disk drive to windows server which is running in Oracle Infrastructure Cloud.  Again, to know more about the fundamentals, it is always a good practice to visit Oracle Cloud documentation https://docs.cloud.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/GSG/Tasks/addingstorageForWindows.htm  which keeps on updating.

I hope this will help someone. Keep learning Cloud as it is the future.