How to Mount a Vultr File System Volume on Windows

Mounting a Vultr File System volume on Windows extends your server storage by adding a new disk drive. This process involves installing a virtiofs service to mount the Vultr File System volume as a new disk drive and configuring the service to automatically start at boot. Windows does not natively support the virtiofs protocol, and installing the virtio-win driver and the Windows File System Proxy (WinFsp) application creates the virtiofs service to mount Vultr File System volumes on the server.

Follow this guide to mount a Vultr File System volume on a Windows server.

Install the virtio-win System Drivers

1. Visit the Fedora virtio-win releases page, open the latest virtio-win archive and download the virtio-win-guest-tools.exe file.

   

2. Open the downloaded virtio-win-guest-tools.exe file to launch the installation wizard.

3. Agree to the virtio-win license terms and click Install.

4. Click Next and accept the end-user license agreement.

5. Click Next and keep the default virtio-win features.

6. Click Install to start the installation.

7. Click Finish to complete the installation.

8. Close the virtio-win installation wizard.

   

Install WinFsp

1. Visit the WinFsp releases page and download the latest WinFsp Installer to your server.

   

2. Open the downloaded winfsp-<version>.msi package to launch the WinFsp installation wizard.

3. Click Next to start the installation wizard.

4. Keep the default WinFsp features and click Next to continue.

5. Click Install to start the WinFsp installation process.

6. Click Finish to close the WinFsp installation wizard.

   

Enable the VirtIO-FS Windows Service

1. Press Win+R to open the Windows run dialog.

2. Enter services.msc in the input field and press Enter to open the Services window.

   

3. Find and right-click VirtIO-FS Service from the list of services.

4. Select Properties from the list of options.

   

5. Click the Startup type drop-down and select Automatic to enable the VirtIO-FS Service to start automatically at boot.

   

6. Click Start to run the VirtIO-FS Service.

7. Verify that the service status changes to Running and click Apply to save the changes.

8. Click OK to close the VirtIO-FS Service properties window.

Access a Mounted Vultr File System Volume

1. Open the Windows File Explorer.

2. Click This PC and verify that the Vultr File System volume is mounted as a new disk drive.

   

3. Double-click to open the Vultr File System volume.

4. Create a new greetingsfromvultr.txt file to test write permissions on the volume.