# Losing data with persistent hard disks/images

**URL:** <https://forum.opennebula.io/t/losing-data-with-persistent-hard-disks-images/5742>\
**Category:** Product Support\
**Created:** [February 21, 2018, 3:44pm UTC](https://forum.opennebula.io/t/losing-data-with-persistent-hard-disks-images/5742 "2018-02-21T15:44:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![francisco.lopez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@francisco.lopez](https://forum.opennebula.io/u/francisco.lopez)\
**Post date:** [February 21, 2018, 3:44pm UTC](https://forum.opennebula.io/t/losing-data-with-persistent-hard-disks-images/5742/1 "2018-02-21T15:44:22Z")

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Hello all,

I have a couple of questions regarding persistence in OpenNebula. Maybe I have understood it all wrong, I don’t know: So in order to launch a VM I first upload the desired image to my OpeNebula server and check the “This image is persistent” tick-box upon doing so. I create a template afterwards, I specify all the details and select the image I want to use. Finally, I launch the VM by selecting the template and wait for it to initiate.

The thing is that, even if it says all over the place that the image that I chose is persistent, whenever I “Terminate” the VM and relaunch it back, I lose all the data/changes/etc… that were there while it was up. When I click on “Terminate” I get a warning stating that whichever hard drive that is non-persistent will lose all changes, but my hard drives/images are all persistent.

So what’s going on here? Am I missing a step in the process? Is this the normal way OpenNebula should behave?

Thanks in advance and best regards,

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**Author:** ![VURoland](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.opennebula.io/vuroland/32/7682_2.png) [@VURoland](https://forum.opennebula.io/u/VURoland)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 4:20pm UTC](https://forum.opennebula.io/t/losing-data-with-persistent-hard-disks-images/5742/2 "2018-02-23T16:20:07Z")

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hi, your assumption about persistance is correct, all changes should be there still if an image is used with persistance=YES.

When your VM’s are running, and you check your images in the datastore, they should show up as USED\_PERS, and not: USED - what does it show on your running-VM-images ?

Also, what storage subsystem are you using; ceph / local disk / NFS ?

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**Author:** ![francisco.lopez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@francisco.lopez](https://forum.opennebula.io/u/francisco.lopez)\
**Post date:** [February 26, 2018, 9:26am UTC](https://forum.opennebula.io/t/losing-data-with-persistent-hard-disks-images/5742/3 "2018-02-26T09:26:20Z")

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Hi VURoland,

Thanks for answering, so then if my assumptions are correct my instance must be misbehaving right?

To your questions: In the datastore I see USED\_PERS in my running images. I’m using a local disk storage system.

I’ve also tried to “Use the image as persistent” and to " Instantiate as persistent " both for one VM, but besides cloning the base image and the template, everything works in the same way: Once I terminate the VM I lose all changes/data… (I relaunch a VM with the cloned image)