Ec2_ebs_volumes

New

To create an EBS Volume you need to specify the following items:

• Nickname - A short name that lets you recognize the volume.
• Description - Describe the purpose of the volume and any other useful information. This is for documentation purposes only and does not affect behavior.
• Snapshot - An EBS Snapshot that you would like to build a volume from. You are not required to provide a snapshot if you wish to create an empty volume. Simply select the (-none-) option in order to create a blank volume.
• Zone - The Availability Zone that you would like to place your volume into. You can only attach a volume to an instance that is in the same availability zone. Before creating a new volume you may need to check the availability zone of the instance that you want to attach the new volume to because once a volume is created, it cannot be moved into a different availability zone.
• Size in GB - The size of the volume. If you are creating the volume based on an existing snapshot, a minimum size will be displayed. (Valid range: 1GB - 1TB) NOTE: If you are choosing an IOPS volume type, specify at least 10GBs in size, since that is the minimum size for the instance.
• Type - The type of the EBS volume. Choose 'standard' for a standard EBS volume and 'io1' for a Provisioned IOPS volume.
• IOPS - This field will appear if 'io1' is chosen as a Type. The IOPS rate that you would like this volume to be provisioned as. The IOPS provisioned ratio of the volume size can be a maximum of 10 and the range to create a Provisioned IOPS volume is 100 IOPS and 10GB up to 2,000 IOPS and 200GB.

Index

The Elastic Block Store (EBS) provides persistent, high-performance, and high-availability block-level storage which you can attach to a running EC2 instance (in the same availability zone) in the form of volumes. There are two types of volumes you can create: Standard and Provisioned IOPS. A Standard volume is best suited for boot volumes and provides roughly 100 IOPS (Input/Output Per Second) on average. Provisioned IOPS volumes are designed to provide predictable, high performance I/O workloads that range up to 2,000 IOPS and are best suited for database workloads. Each EBS volume can be formatted and mounted as a file system. An EBS Volume can only be attached to a single instance at a time. Attach EBS Volumes to instances at run-time or boot-time. Multiple volumes can be mounted to the same instance. Take EBS Snapshots of a volume at a particular point in time and then create multiple volumes from a snapshot and place them into any zone. You can also see the lineage of a volume/snapshot to see when it was created, as well as any parent/child relationships.

Note: Changes to EBS Volumes, whether they are creations, attachments, detachments or deletions, often requires several minutes to take effect.

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Lineage tab

The Lineage tab shows a chronological lineage of all created EBS volumes within the account. Select a volume to view a more detailed lineage report including attach/detach/snapshot actions.

Show

An EBS Volume is a highly reliable and persistent storage volume that can be mounted to EC2 instances in the same availability zone.

Action Buttons

• Attach now - Attach this volume to a server instance that is already operational. You will also have the option to configure the volume to be attached at boot time the next time the server is launched.
• Attach on boot time - Attach this volume to the server instance (at boot time) the next time the server is launched.
• Detach - Unmount and detach an EBS volume from a running server instance. The volume will not be deleted.
• Forced Detach - If you've detached a volume and it appears as though the volume is stuck, you can forcibly detach it from the instance. When you perform a regular detach action, it will wait for all data to by copied to the volume before the it's detached. However, a forced detach will be immediately unplugged from the instance, so some data loss may occur.
• Snapshot - When you attach a snapshot to a server instance, a volume of that snapshot will be created and attached to the instance.
• Delete - Delete the volume. You cannot delete a volume that is currently attached to a running server instance. You must first detach it before you can delete it.

Lineage tab

The Lineage tab shows the lineage of a volume. You can see which snapshot the volume was originally created from, as well as a history of all snapshots and attach/detach actions.

Snapshots tab

The Snapshots tab shows the snapshot history of the volume. Delete unnecessary snapshots or create new volumes from one of the snapshots.

Info tab

The Info tab shows general information about the volume including its availability status (available, in-use) and attachment status (attached, not attached). You can also see if the volume was created from scratch or from an existing snapshot. Once a volume is created, its details cannot be edited. For example, you can't move an EBS volume into a different availability zone. If you want to make the volume available in a different availability zone you will need to create a snapshot of it and then create a volume from the snapshot in the desired availability zone.

Although you can only apply tags in the Dashboard, the tags of an EBS Volume will show up in a tag search issued from the API. A user will still need 'actor' user role privileges in a RightScale account in order to add/edit/delete a tag in the RightScale Dashboard.

Servers tab

The Servers tab shows the volume's current attachment settings. If the volume is currently attached to a server you can take a snapshot or detach the volume. You can also configure a volume so that it will automatically be attached to a server at boot time.