SkillsAdd

render-oss/skills

render-disks

>- Attaches and manages persistent disks on Render services—mount paths, sizing, snapshots, file transfers, and single-instance constraints. Use when the user needs persistent storage, file uploads, a custom database on disk, CMS media storage, or needs to understand why their service can't scale horizontally or use zero-downtime deploys. Trigger terms: persistent disk, disk, storage, mount path, sizeGB, SSD, file uploads, snapshots, disk restore, ephemeral filesystem.

First seen May 1, 2026

Installation

$ npx skills add render-oss/skills --skill render-disks
View on skills.sh ↗ GitHub repository ↗

Similar popular skills

Related neighbors and high-traction skills in the same topics — useful to compare before installing.

remotion-render Similar name
remotion-dev/skills

Export a Remotion video

74.7K installs
render-deploy Similar name
openai/skills

Deploy applications to Render by analyzing codebases, generating render.yaml Blueprints, and pr…

2.5K installs
web-renderer-test Similar name
remotion-dev/remotion

Add a test case to the web renderer

2.4K installs
pixijs-custom-rendering Similar name
pixijs/pixijs-skills

Use this skill when writing custom shaders, uniforms, filters, or batchers in PixiJS v8. Covers…

4.1K installs
remotion-render Similar name
101-skills/superpowers

Render videos from React/Remotion component code via inference.sh. Pass TSX code, get MP4. Supp…

3.2K installs
a2ui-renderer Similar name
copilotkit/copilotkit

Render A2UI (Agent-to-UI declarative surfaces) in CopilotKit v2. Enable the runtime via Copilot…

2.7K installs

Also in this package

Other skills from render-oss/skills · top by installs.

npx skills add render-oss/skills
render-deploy 454 render-debug 435 render-monitor 415 render-cli 403 render-env-vars 377 render-mcp 376 render-cron-jobs 359 render-web-services 320 render-workflows 308 render-blueprints 305

Browse all from render-oss/skills

More details

Agent compatibility

Declared targets from SKILL.md / docs. Unmarked agents are not listed — the skill may still install via the CLI.

Claude Code Not declared
Cursor Not declared
Codex Not declared
GitHub Copilot Not declared
Windsurf Not declared
Gemini CLI Not declared
Cline Not declared
OpenCode Not declared

Repository health

Stars 79
License LICENSE
Default branch main
Open issues 1
Status Active

Skill metadata

Parsed from SKILL.md frontmatter.

Version1.0.0
LicenseMIT
CompatibilityRender paid web services, private services, and background workers
More metadata
author
Render
version
1.0.0
category
storage

Package contents

Files included with this skill beyond the listing page.

  • skill md SKILL.md 6,186 B
  • docs SUMMARY.md 492 B

History

  1. First seen on skills.sh
  2. First recorded snapshot · 259 installs

SKILL.md

Render Persistent Disks

Persistent disks are high-performance SSDs you attach to a Render service to preserve filesystem changes across deploys and restarts. Without a disk, services have an ephemeral filesystem—all local file changes are lost on every deploy.

When to Use

  • Storing file uploads, CMS media, or user-generated content
  • Running a self-managed database (MySQL, MongoDB, ClickHouse) on Render
  • Deploying stateful infrastructure (Elasticsearch, Kafka, RabbitMQ, Mattermost)
  • Understanding why scaling is blocked or zero-downtime deploys are disabled
  • Restoring data from an automatic disk snapshot

For managed databases, prefer Render Postgres (render-postgres) or Key Value (render-keyvalue) over self-managed alternatives on disk.

Critical Constraints

These constraints affect architecture decisions. Understand them before attaching a disk:

Constraint Impact
Single instance only Cannot scale horizontally (numInstances must be 1, autoscaling not available)
No zero-downtime deploys Old instance stops before new instance starts (brief downtime on each deploy)
Runtime access only Disk is not available during buildCommand or preDeployCommand (those run on separate compute)
Not accessible from other services Only the attached service can read/write the disk
Not available on cron jobs Attach to a web service, private service, or background worker instead
Not available on one-off jobs One-off jobs run on separate compute without disk access
Can increase size, cannot decrease Start small and grow as needed

Setup

Dashboard

  1. Go to your service's Disks page
  2. Set the mount path (absolute path where persistent data is stored)
  3. Choose a size in GB
  4. Click Add disk — triggers a new deploy

Blueprint

services:
  - type: web
    name: cms
    runtime: node
    plan: starter
    region: oregon
    buildCommand: npm ci && npm run build
    startCommand: npm start
    disk:
      name: cms-data
      mountPath: /var/data
      sizeGB: 10

Mount Path

Only files written under the mount path are preserved. Everything else remains ephemeral.

Runtime Source code path Example mount path
Node.js, Python, Ruby, Elixir, Rust /opt/render/project/src /opt/render/project/src/uploads
Go /opt/render/project/go/src/github.com/<user>/<repo> .../data
Docker Dockerfile's WORKDIR (commonly /app) /app/storage

Disallowed mount paths

Cannot mount at: /, /opt, /opt/render, /opt/render/project, /opt/render/project/src, /home, /home/render, /etc, /etc/secrets.

Subdirectories of these paths are fine (e.g. /opt/render/project/src/uploads).

Snapshots

  • Render creates an automatic snapshot every 24 hours
  • Snapshots are available for at least 7 days
  • Restore from the service's Disks page in the Dashboard
  • Full restore only — you cannot restore individual files
  • Destructive — all changes after the snapshot are lost

Do not restore snapshots for custom database recovery. Use database-native backup tools (mysqldump, mongodump) instead—disk snapshots may capture a corrupted database state.

File Transfers

SCP (via SSH)

# Download from service
scp -s [email protected]_REGION.render.com:/mount/path/file ./local-file

# Upload to service
scp -s ./local-file [email protected]_REGION.render.com:/mount/path/file

Requires SSH access enabled for the service.

Magic-Wormhole

Available on all native runtimes (install manually on Docker):

# On the service shell
wormhole send /mount/path/file

# On your local machine
wormhole receive

Common Patterns

Pattern Service type Mount path Notes
WordPress / Ghost / CMS Web Service /var/data or /app/content Media uploads, SQLite
Self-managed MySQL Private Service /var/lib/mysql Use mysqldump for backups, not disk snapshots
File upload API Web Service /opt/render/project/src/uploads Single instance constraint
Elasticsearch Private Service /usr/share/elasticsearch/data Stateful search infrastructure

Common Mistakes

Mistake Fix
Expecting horizontal scaling with a disk Not possible — disk services are single-instance only
Mounting at a disallowed path Use a subdirectory (e.g. /opt/render/project/src/uploads not /opt/render/project/src)
Reading disk during build or pre-deploy These run on separate compute — move logic to the start command
Restoring disk snapshot for a database Use database-native backups instead
Starting with a large disk size Start small — you can increase but never decrease

References

Document Contents
references/sizing-and-snapshots.md Sizing guidance, snapshot lifecycle, restore procedures, cost patterns

Related Skills

  • render-web-services — Deploy lifecycle, health checks (disk disables zero-downtime)
  • render-private-services — Internal services with disks (Elasticsearch, MySQL)
  • render-blueprints — disk field reference in render.yaml
  • render-postgres — Managed database alternative (no disk management needed)