Compute VM Instance (n4-standard-16) with attached disks.

[Dg03cloud]

Hi. I'm working on a usecase to provision a compute VM instance with an additional attached disks with a machine_type = n4-standard-16 (for intel processer) through terraform. I have received this error while provisioning a compute VM Instance with attached disks. Any thoughts on this error?

Error: googleapi: Error 400: [pd-standard, pd-ssd, n4-standard-16] features are not compatible for creating instance., badRequest..

[alexmoore]

This is because N4 instance types only support Hyperdisk Balanced written as:

hyperdisk-balanced

See:

https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/general-purpose-machines#supported_disk_types_for_n4

(correct at the time of writing, check the link for the latest supported disks)

[Dg03cloud]

@alexmoore Appreciate your prompt reply. I want to create VM instance with additional disks with a '16 vCPUs', and the required machine processor is 'intel'. I have tried to create a VM with machine type 'n2-standard-16' and 'n2d-standard-16', but I'm unable to create additional disks with these specifications. Which machine type is available to create a VM instance with additional disk with 16vCPU?

[alexmoore]

when you say you're unable to create them, what errors are you encountering?

You can attach up to 128 PD volumes to most VMs (16 for shared core VMs), see: 

https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/disks#pdnumberlimits

[Dg03cloud]

@alexmoore Here is my terraform config to create a VM instance, create additional disk and attach disk to the instance, with machine type n4-standard-16.

resource "google_compute_instance" "VM {
name = "attached-disk-instance"
machine_type = "n4-standard-16"
zone = "us-central1-a

boot_disk {
initialize_params {
image = "debian-cloud/debian-11"
}
}

network_interface {
network = "default"
}

lifecycle {
ignore_changes = [attached_disk]
}
}

resource "google_compute_disk" "testdisk"
name = "disk1"
image = "debian-cloud/debian-11"
size = 100
type = "pd-ssd"
zone = "us-central1-a"
}

resource "google_compute_attached_disk" "attach_disk"
disk = google_compute_disk.testdisk.id
instance = google_compute_instance.vm.id
}

Error:- Error: googleapi: Error 400: [pd-standard, pd-ssd, n4-standard-16] features are not compatible for creating instance., badRequest.

[alexmoore]

This is confusing me slightly, at the top of your last reply you say "n2-standard-16", in the terrafrom code you shared it has "n2d-standard-16" and in the error at the bottom it lists "n4-standard-16" - can you confirm which you are using?  because the error is saying n4-standard-16 and you can't use pd-<anything> with N4.

[Dg03cloud]

@alexmoore Sure. Initially I tried to create a VM machine with additional disk with a machine type n4-standard-16, which is not supported to create an additional disk with 'pd-ssd'. Then I'm able to create a VM instance with a machine type 'n2-standard-16', then create a additional disk with 'pd-ssd' type and able to attach it. Now this issue is resolved. Thank you!!