# Storing VMs cheaply when you're not using them

**URL:** <https://community.cloudbank.org/t/storing-vms-cheaply-when-youre-not-using-them/165>\
**Category:** General Cloud\
**Created:** [November 2, 2023, 11:19pm UTC](https://community.cloudbank.org/t/storing-vms-cheaply-when-youre-not-using-them/165 "2023-11-02T23:19:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![NLAlterman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.cloudbank.org/nlalterman/32/11_2.png) [@NLAlterman](https://community.cloudbank.org/u/NLAlterman)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2023, 11:19pm UTC](https://community.cloudbank.org/t/storing-vms-cheaply-when-youre-not-using-them/165/1 "2023-11-02T23:19:39Z")

</div>

**What should I be worrying about?**

It’s common when using cloud VMs for your research to leave them shut down for several months at a time while you’re in phases of your work that don’t involve heavy computation. In theory, a VM that is shut down isn’t incurring any cost…right?

Well, almost.

Even when shut down, you’re being charged for the VM’s hard drive (or “_block storage_”) . In general, block storage can run around $0.05 to $0.15 per GB per month ([Azure](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/managed-disks/)/[AWS](https://aws.amazon.com/ebs/pricing/)/[GCP](https://cloud.google.com/compute/disks-image-pricing#disk)). For a VM with a 256 GB hard disk, this means you’ll be spending on average $25/month to keep it around, even if you’re not using it.

**What can I do about this?**

- If you’re not going to ever use a VM again, just delete it (rather than leaving it shut down).

- If you want to retain the VM because it has valuable research data on it, consider moving the data off of the VM and into object storage ([Azure](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/storage/blobs)/[AWS](https://aws.amazon.com/s3/)/[GCP](https://cloud.google.com/storage)), which can be an order of magnitude cheaper. After offloading your data, delete the VM.

- If you want to retain the VM because of its installed software and configuration, you have a few options that vary based on cloud platform. In essence, they all involve making a full disk backup of the VM, storing that backup either in cloud object storage (as described above) or on your own non-cloud backup media, and then deleting the VM. When you want to use the VM again, you create a new one using the backed up snapshot of the previous VM’s hard drive as a “template”.

**Hmm, ok. What if I make a mistake or am unsure about this stuff?**

As always, you can contact [CloudBank support](mailto:help@cloudbank.org) for advice and consultation on this process. We heartily encourage you to look into storing VMs in object storage or on-premise if you’re not using them, and are always happy to help!