DigitalOcean Droplets are Linux-based virtual machines (VMs) that run on top of virtualized hardware. Each Droplet you create is a new server you can use, either standalone or as part of a larger, cloud-based infrastructure.
GPU Droplets come with two different kinds of storage:
Boot disk: A local, persistent disk on the Droplet to store data for software like the operating system and ML frameworks. This is the same as the disk on a non-GPU Droplet.
Scratch disk: A local, non-persistent disk to store data for staging purposes, like inference and training. Non-GPU Droplets do not have a scratch disk.
The scratch disk is not included in snapshots of the Droplet, and if you destroy or recreate a GPU Droplet, the scratch disk is lost. The scratch disk has no redundancy, so hardware failures may also lead to loss of data.
We strongly recommend storing data you want to keep on the boot disk, and using the scratch disk for ephemeral data as intended.
The scratch disk that comes with a GPU Droplet is pre-formatted with a single ext4 GPT partition, but it is not automatically mounted.
To configure automatic mounting, first create a mount point directory (like /scratch):
mkdir /scratch
Then add the following configuration to /etc/fstab:
LABEL=DOSCRATCH /scratch ext4 discard,errors=remount-ro 0 2
Replace /scratch with the mount point directory you chose.
Finally, mount the scratch disk’s filesystem to make it available to the Droplet.
mount /scratch
Our existing documentation for working with block storage volumes can be helpful for reformatting and partitioning, expanding partitions, and other block storage actions.