> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://siderolabs-fe86397c-1-11-reference.mintlify.site/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Overview

> Guide on managing disks

This guide provides an overview of the disk management features in Talos Linux.

## Disk and Volume Discovery

See [Disk Layout](./layout) for details on the disk layout and how to observe discovered disks and volumes.

## Volume Management

Talos Linux implements disk management through the concept of volumes.
A volume represents a provisioned, located, mounted, or unmounted entity, such as a disk, partition, or a directory/overlay mount.

Talos Linux has [built-in (system) volumes](./system), which can be partially configured by the user, and user-defined volumes, which are fully configurable by the user.
User volumes come in several flavors:

* [User Volumes](./user) - for dynamically allocated local storage for Kubernetes workloads.
* [Raw Volumes](./raw) - for allocating unformatted storage (e.g. to be used with CSIs).
* [Existing Volumes](./existing) - for mounting pre-existing partitions or disks.

For information on allocating swap space, see [Swap Management](../swap).

Configuration documents related to volume management are located in the [`block` group](../../../reference/configuration/block), see [common configuration](./common) for common fields
in volume configuration documents.