Managing AWS EBS Volumes on EC2 Instances

If I had to relearn Linux for observability…

I would master AWS EBS volume management early —

because in the cloud, storage problems = production incidents.

✅ Expand observability storage without stopping the server

✅ Add separate volumes for logs, metrics, and data

✅ Protect workloads during scale-outs and backups

✅ Restore services faster when disk fills up

🛠️ What is an EBS Volume?

• EBS (Elastic Block Store) = AWS's managed "hard disks."
• Acts just like a normal Linux block device.
• Can be attached to one EC2 instance at a time (for standard volumes).
• Supports: Snapshots (backups), Volume resizin,g Different performance types (gp3, io2, st1, sc1)

✅ It’s your cloud "disk" that persists even if the instance reboots!

🔧 How to Manage EBS Volumes on EC2 (Step-by-Step)

1️⃣ Create an EBS Volume

✅ Go to AWS Console ➔ EC2 ➔ Elastic Block Store ➔ Volumes ➔ Create Volume

• Choose size, type (gp3 recommended for general use)
• Choose the same Availability Zone as your EC2 instance

2️⃣ Attach EBS Volume to EC2 Instance

✅ After creating the volume:

• Select it ➔ "Attach Volume" ➔ Choose your EC2 instance

Example: It appears as /dev/xvdf, /dev/sdf, etc.

3️⃣ Connect to Your EC2 Instance

ssh -i mykey.pem ec2-user@<public-ip>        

✅ You must SSH into the instance to work with the volume.

4️⃣ Prepare the Volume

Check if the volume is detected:

lsblk        

You should see a new device, e.g., /dev/xvdf.

✅ If it's a brand new volume (blank), you must format it:

sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/xvdf        

✅ If you attached an existing volume with data, skip formatting!

5️⃣ Mount the Volume

sudo mkdir /mnt/data
sudo mount /dev/xvdf /mnt/data        

✅ Now /mnt/data contains the volume’s filesystem.

6️⃣ Make Mount Permanent (Auto-Mount on Reboot)

Edit /etc/fstab:

Get UUID first:

sudo blkid /dev/xvdf        

Example fstab entry:

UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx /mnt/data ext4 defaults,nofail 0 2        

✅ Always use UUID instead of device name to avoid issues after reboot!

7️⃣ Expand an Existing EBS Volume

✅ If you run out of space:

1. Expand the volume in AWS Console (Elastic Block Store ➔ Modify Volume).
2. On EC2:

lsblk  # check updated size
sudo growpart /dev/xvdf 1
sudo resize2fs /dev/xvdf        

✅ Now the filesystem knows about the extra space!

Simple Analogy

Managing AWS EBS Volumes is like managing external hard drives for your laptop 🧳:

• Create a drive (Volume) 📦
• Plug it into your computer (Attach to EC2) 🔌
• Format it (if needed) 🧹
• Mount it and use (open drive folder) 📂
• Resize drive if running low (expand volume) ➡️🆙

✅ In AWS, you plug, unplug, resize drives —

without shutting down the machine!

🗺️ Where Are We in the Linux Journey?

Physical Disks → Logical Volumes → Cloud Storage (EBS) → Dynamic Observability Scaling        

✅ You now understand how storage works not just in Linux, but inside the cloud too.