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How to Resize Valkey Database Clusters

Validated on 24 Apr 2025 • Last edited on 28 May 2026

Valkey is a high-performance, open-source database that stores key-value data in memory, and is designed for caching, message queues, and primary database use. Fully compatible with Redis, Valkey serves as a drop-in replacement.

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You can resize existing Valkey database clusters at any time to add more CPUs, RAM, and storage. To avoid data loss, you can’t decrease the size of database clusters.

Resize a Database Cluster Using Automation

You can resize a database cluster using the DigitalOcean CLI (doctl) or the API.

Resize a Database Cluster via 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

Install doctl, the official DigitalOcean CLI.
Create a personal access token and save it for use with doctl.
Use the token to grant doctl access to your DigitalOcean account.
```
doctl auth init
```
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 via 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

Create a personal access token and save it for use with the API.

cURL

Send a PUT request to https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/databases/{database_cluster_uuid}/resize.

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 Valkey database cluster, go to the Databases page, and select the cluster you want to resize. On the cluster’s Overview page, click the Settings tab.

In the Cluster configuration section, click the Edit button, and then select a Droplet plan. You can optionally add standby nodes, if needed.

Cluster configuration section with additional nodes selected

Once you have selected your new configuration click Save to apply your changes. 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 you don’t need to take any action.