How to Resize MySQL Database Clusters

Validated on 5 May 2026 • Last edited on 5 May 2026

MySQL is an open source, object-relational database built with speed and reliability in mind. Its large and active developer community has created many third-party applications, tools, and libraries that expand MySQL’s functionality.

You can resize existing MySQL database clusters at any time to change CPUs, RAM, and storage, including scaling up or down when disk utilization and plan limits allow.

Scaling Down

You can scale down compute and storage when the target configuration keeps projected disk utilization at or under 80%. Projected utilization is calculated using the size of your most recent backup plus your current log size. The combined size must be within 80% of the target storage.

Each compute plan enforces minimum and maximum storage values. When scaling down, the target storage must remain within these limits, even if the 80% utilization check would otherwise allow a smaller size. You can choose a smaller compute tier only if the requested storage falls within that tier’s allowed range.

For example, starting from a General Purpose Dedicated CPU plan with 4 vCPU / 16 GiB RAM, 100 GiB storage, and 80 GiB used for data:

Target configuration Result
Same plan with 90 GiB storage Allowed (meets 80% limit)
General Purpose Dedicated CPU, 2 vCPU / 8 GiB RAM, 90 GiB storage Allowed (within plan limits)
Basic Shared CPU, 1 vCPU / 2 GiB RAM, 90 GiB storage Not allowed (plan supports maximum storage of 60 GiB)
General Purpose Dedicated CPU, 8 vCPU / 32 GiB RAM, 90 GiB storage Not allowed (plan requires minimum storage of 160 GiB)

Resize a Database Cluster Using the CLI

To resize a database cluster using doctl, you need to provide a value for the --size flag, which specifies the cluster’s new configuration (number of CPUs, amount of RAM, and hard disk space). Use the doctl databases options slugs command to get a list of available values.

How to Resize a Database Cluster Using the DigitalOcean CLI
  1. Install doctl, the official DigitalOcean CLI.
  2. Create a personal access token and save it for use with doctl.
  3. Use the token to grant doctl access to your DigitalOcean account.
    doctl auth init
  4. Finally, run doctl databases resize. Basic usage looks like this, but you can read the usage docs for more details:
    doctl databases resize <database-cluster-id> [flags]
    The following example resizes a PostgreSQL or MySQL database to have two nodes, 16 vCPUs, 64 GB of memory, and 2048 GiB of storage space:
    doctl databases resize ca9f591d-9999-5555-a0ef-1c02d1d1e352 --num-nodes 2 --size db-s-16vcpu-64gb --storage-size-mib 2048000 --wait true

Resize a Database Cluster Using the API

To resize a database cluster using the API, you need to provide a value for the size field, which specifies the cluster’s configuration (number of CPUs, amount of RAM, and hard disk space). Use the /v2/databases/options endpoint to get a list of available values.

How to Resize a Database Cluster Using the DigitalOcean API
  1. Create a personal access token and save it for use with the API.
  2. Send a PUT request to https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/databases/{database_cluster_uuid}/resize.

cURL

Using cURL:

curl -X PUT \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $DIGITALOCEAN_TOKEN" \
-d '{"size":"db-s-4vcpu-8gb", "num_nodes":3, "storage_size_mib":163840}' \
"https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/databases/9cc10173-e9ea-4176-9dbc-a4cee4c4ff30/resize" 

Go

Using Godo, the official DigitalOcean API client for Go:

import (
    "context"
    "github.com/digitalocean/godo"
)

func main() {
    pat := "mytoken"

    client := godo.NewFromToken(pat)
    ctx := context.TODO()

    resizeRequest := &godo.DatabaseResizeRequest{
        SizeSlug: "db-s-4vcpu-8gb",
        NumNodes: 3,
        StorageSizeMib: 163840,
    }
}

Python

Using PyDo, the official DigitalOcean API client for Python:

import os
from pydo import Client

client = Client(token=os.environ.get("DIGITALOCEAN_TOKEN"))

req = {
  "size": "db-s-4vcpu-8gb",
  "num_nodes": 3,
  "storage_size_mib": 163840
}

update_resp = client.databases.update_cluster_size(database_cluster_uuid="a7a8bas", body=req)

Resize a Database Cluster Using the Control Panel

To resize a MySQL database cluster, click the name of the cluster in the control panel to go to its Overview page, then click the Settings tab.

In the Cluster configuration section, click Edit. Select your cluster configuration and CPU option.

Cluster configuration section with additional nodes selected

Then, select your storage size.

The Autoscale storage section lets you check a box to automatically increase storage when disk utilization on any node in the cluster reaches the specified threshold. The threshold is based on the worst-performing node in the cluster, not the average across nodes. Click Customize to set a custom threshold and storage increment. The system bills this increase as additional storage.

Note
When autoscaling occurs, the specified storage increment is added to each node in the cluster, not distributed across the cluster. The total added storage is approximately the increment multiplied by the number of nodes.

Autoscaling takes several minutes, depending on the cluster size. It runs without downtime, and you do not need to take any action.

The storage autoscaling section

Once you have selected your new configuration and size, click Save to provision the new configuration. The provisioning takes several minutes but the total time depends on the size of the cluster.

Your cluster’s state changes from Active to Resizing until the process is done. You can expect no downtime and do not need to take action.

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