EBS Core Concepts

Fundamentals & Getting Started

What is EBS?

Block Storage

Network-attached persistent storage volumes

Persistent

Data survives instance termination

High Availability

99.999% availability SLA

AZ Bound

Created in specific Availability Zone

Volume Types

gp3 (General Purpose)

Latest SSD, 3,000-16,000 IOPS

io2 (Provisioned IOPS)

High performance, up to 64,000 IOPS

st1 (Throughput Optimized)

HDD for frequently accessed data

sc1 (Cold HDD)

Lowest cost for infrequent access

Volume Lifecycle Management

Create & Attach

Volume creation and attachment

  • • Create in specific AZ
  • • Attach to EC2 instance
  • • Format and mount

Snapshots

Backup and restore capabilities

  • • Point-in-time backups
  • • Incremental snapshots
  • • Cross-region copying

Modify & Scale

Dynamic volume modifications

  • • Increase size online
  • • Change volume type
  • • Modify IOPS/throughput

Performance

IOPS

Input/Output Operations Per Second

Throughput

Data transfer rate (MB/s)

EBS-Optimized

Dedicated bandwidth for EBS

Monitoring

CloudWatch metrics and alarms

Security

Encryption at Rest

AES-256 encryption using KMS

Encryption in Transit

Data encrypted between EC2 and EBS

IAM Integration

Fine-grained access control

Default Encryption

Account-level encryption settings

EBS vs Instance Store Comparison

Persistence

EBS: Persistent

Instance Store: Ephemeral

Performance

EBS: Network limited

Instance Store: Very high

Backup

EBS: Snapshots

Instance Store: Manual

Cost

EBS: Pay for storage

Instance Store: Included

Advanced Features

Multi-Attach

Attach volume to multiple instances

Elastic Volumes

Modify volumes without downtime

Fast Snapshot Restore

Instantly restore from snapshots

Basic Operations

Create Volume

aws ec2 create-volume

Attach Volume

aws ec2 attach-volume

Create Snapshot

aws ec2 create-snapshot

EBS Core Concepts Exam Tips

  • • EBS volumes are AZ-specific and cannot be attached to instances in different AZs
  • • EBS provides persistent storage that survives instance termination (unless DeleteOnTermination is enabled)
  • • Root volumes can be EBS or Instance Store, but only EBS root volumes persist after termination
  • • EBS volumes can be detached and reattached to different instances in the same AZ
  • • Multi-Attach is only available for io1 and io2 volumes with cluster-aware file systems
Back to EBS Topics Next: EBS Volume Types