EBS Volume | Notion

Overview

Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) provides persistent block-level storage volumes for use with EC2 instances.
You can attach these volumes to instances as network drives — meaning data remains even when the instance stops or terminates (depending on configuration).
EBS volumes are replicated within their Availability Zone (AZ) to provide high availability and durability.

Key Characteristics of EBS

Feature	Description
Persistent Storage	Data persists even after instance stop or termination (if configured).
Network Drive	EBS is connected over the network, not physically attached.
Availability Zone Locked	Each volume is tied to a specific AZ; cannot attach across AZs.
Provisioned Capacity	You define the size (GiB) and performance (IOPS/throughput).
Attachable/Detachable	Can be attached, detached, and reattached to other instances in the same AZ.
Multi-Attach	Certain volume types (like io1/io2) support attaching to multiple instances simultaneously (read/write).
Snapshot Support	You can take point-in-time backups (snapshots) stored in S3.

How EBS Works

Create a Volume
- Create an EBS volume in a specific AZ.
Attach Volume
- Attach it to an EC2 instance within the same AZ.
Mount and Use
- Format and mount it as a filesystem inside the OS.
Detach/Stop
- You can detach the volume while keeping the data intact.
Snapshot
- Create snapshots for backup or replication across AZs or regions.

Example Use Case

Scenario

You have an EC2 instance in us-east-1a.

You create a 100 GiB gp3 EBS volume in the same AZ and attach it to that instance.

You store your web application files on this EBS volume.