Amazon EBS provides block-level storage for EC2 instances.
It acts like a virtual hard disk that can be attached to EC2 instances for data storage.
EBS is designed for high availability, low latency, and persistent storage, meaning your data remains intact even after stopping or restarting the EC2 instance.
| Concept | Description |
|---|---|
| Volume | A virtual hard drive attached to an EC2 instance. |
| Persistence | Data remains after instance stops or restarts. |
| Availability Zone (AZ) | EBS volumes are created within a single AZ — must be attached to instances in the same AZ. |
| Attach/Detach | You can attach or detach volumes from instances as needed. |
| Type | Description | Use Case |
|---|---|---|
| gp3 / gp2 (General Purpose SSD) | Balanced price and performance | Most common use (boot volumes, general apps) |
| io1 / io2 (Provisioned IOPS SSD) | High performance, low latency | Databases & high I/O workloads |
| st1 (Throughput Optimized HDD) | Low-cost, high throughput | Big data, data warehousing |
| sc1 (Cold HDD) | Lowest cost | Infrequently accessed data |
# Create EBS volume
aws ec2 create-volume --availability-zone ap-south-1a --size 10 --volume-type gp3
# Attach EBS volume to an instance
aws ec2 attach-volume --volume-id vol-xxxxxxxx --instance-id i-xxxxxxxx --device /dev/xvdf
# Detach EBS volume
aws ec2 detach-volume --volume-id vol-xxxxxxxx
# Delete EBS volume
aws ec2 delete-volume --volume-id vol-xxxxxxxx
Snapshots are point-in-time backups of your EBS volumes.
They are stored in Amazon S3 (internally managed by AWS) — not visible directly in S3 buckets.
✅ Features of Snapshots: