---
title: "Volumes Generally Available, Cron Jobs Beta, Faster Log Search"
date: 2023-07-14T15:00:00.000+00:00
number: 0142
url: https://railway.com/changelog/2023-07-14-volumes-generally-available
---

# Volumes Generally Available, Cron Jobs Beta, Faster Log Search

Hello, it’s your friendly neighborhood changelog operator here and boy we are shipping so much stuff right now that we are running. out. of. ink. to print it all. 

We’re gonna need a WEEK to talk about all this stuff … (hint hint) … but seriously folks, that’s in the future, let’s talk about the present.

Do you want to hear about Volumes and Persistent Storage? What about Cron Jobs? And what if I told you that log search just got 100x (!!!) faster and we have the tapes to prove it? 

Would you want to hear about that too? 

Yes? Ok, great.

Please sit back, relax, and get yourself comfortable because it’s time for Changelog #0142.

Hit it!

## Volumes to GA

[Image: Example Meilisearch implementation with an attached volume]

After [three weeks](https://railway.app/changelog/2023-06-23-volumes-priority-boarding) topping the Priority Boarding best sellers list, Volumes (AKA Persistent Storage) is ready to meet the national press.

Introducing, live and generally available for the very first time … (drum roll) … Volumes!

If you don’t know already, Volumes is a feature that enables you to mount persistent object storage to any Railway service. This is useful in so many ways, but especially for creating your own database-like services. 

We’ve kickstarted some templates for you with [Meilisearch](https://railway.app/template/EVzqfe), [MinIO](https://railway.app/template/SMKOEA), and [Pocketbase](https://railway.app/template/XfUmjI) templates. 

We’ve also written a bunch of [docs](https://docs.railway.app/reference/volumes) for ya, so be sure to check those out, too. 

And if you need some more inspo, jump into the [Railway Discord](https://discord.gg/railway) and say hello. We’ll love to see you there.

## Cron Jobs to Priority Boarding

[Video: An example cron job to backup a Pocketbase database]

[Priority Boarding](https://docs.railway.app/reference/priority-boarding) users can now take advantage of Cron Jobs on Railway! 

A [long-requested feature](https://feedback.railway.app/feature-requests/p/deployment-schedulingcron), Cron Jobs lets you perform a task according to a fixed schedule. 

It’s a pretty simple implementation — simply look for the `Cron Schedule` item in the service settings. From there you can enter a [cron schedule expression](https://crontab.guru/) to get your task scheduled!

As with any Priority Boarding feature, we’re looking for your feedback. What do you like and not like? Let us know in [Discord](https://discord.com/invite/railway). 

## Faster Log Search

[Image: Railway Engineer Greg gives a special demo of enhanced log search performance on 1M+ rows!]

Thanks to the fantastic Railway Engineer [Greg](https://twitter.com/gregoryschier), log search just got WAY faster. 

We’re talking lightning bolts, people. 

To give the all-new logs a try, grab yourself some deploy logs and enter a filter query. You should notice a seriously dramatic speed-up. 

Thanks, Greg!

## Improvements and Fixes

- We added better error reporting when containers fail to be created or start
- We added version specification support to Docker image instance creation
- We fixed some confusing copy on the new pricing page
- We increased the effectiveness of our support ticket routing engine