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With the Start/Stop feature in Compute, you can control when your instances are active. If you need to take a break, save on costs, or just pause a project, you can stop an instance to temporarily pause it and stop compute charges. When you start it again, the instance resumes from its previous state, as long as it hasn’t been automatically terminated.

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View your instances

  • Go to your Compute dashboard.
  • Select the Instances tab.
  • Here you’ll see all of your instances—running or stopped—with details like uptime, resource usage, and hourly cost.
To create a new instance, click Create on the sidebar or in the top-right corner. Chooseinstanceselector

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Stop an instance

To stop billing and pause usage:
  • Click the ⋮ next to the instance you want to stop.
  • Select Stop from the dropdown.
Billing stops as soon as the instance leaves Running. The status then updates to Stopped, while the instance configuration and data are kept temporarily.
Stopping an instance releases the underlying capacity. When you start again, availability depends on current demand, and you may not get the same host or GPU.
Start Stop Instances 2 Pn
Important: stopped instances are temporaryWhen an instance is stopped, it isn’t kept indefinitely.
If an instance remains stopped for more than 10 days, it is automatically terminated.Once terminated, the instance and its data can’t be recovered. To keep an instance, make sure to start it again within that time window.If an instance was stopped for more than 10 days, it may have already been terminated and won’t be available to start.

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Start a stopped instance

To resume activity:
  • Find your stopped instance in the Instances tab.
  • Click the ⋮ next to it.
  • Select Start.
Start Stop Instances 3 Pn Review the configuration details, then click Start instance to confirm. Start Stop Instances 4 Pn The instance returns to Running after it responds over SSH, and billing resumes. Disk preparation finishes before startup proceeds. An application inside the instance may still need time to become ready. Start Stop Instances 5 Pn

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If resources aren’t available

If the network can’t allocate the same configuration immediately, you’ll see a message asking you to try again later. This usually means there’s no matching capacity in that region right now. Your data and settings are kept within the stopped-instance retention window described above. Back up important files; waiting for capacity does not extend that window.

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If an instance fails to start

Compute retries failed starts a limited number of times instead of retrying indefinitely. If the instance still cannot start, it moves to a clear error state and you can retry the action manually from the instance controls. Start and stop operations also retry after internal conflicts. Let the current action settle before trying again. If repeated retries fail, note the instance ID, error, and approximate failure time before contacting Support. For virtual machines, Support can also review serial-console logs to investigate boot and crash problems.

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Data protection during cleanup

Persistent volumes are protected if an instance cleanup fault occurs. This safeguard does not replace backups or change the termination and stopped-instance retention guidance above.