Add instance store volumes to your EC2 instance - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
Add instance store volumes to an AMIAdd instance store volumes to an instanceMake instance store volumes available on your instance
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Add instance store volumes to your EC2 instance

You specify the EBS volumes and instance store volumes for your instance using a block device mapping. Each entry in a block device mapping includes a device name and the volume that it maps to. The default block device mapping is specified by the AMI you use. Alternatively, you can specify a block device mapping for the instance when you launch it.

All the NVMe instance store volumes supported by an instance type are automatically enumerated and assigned a device name on instance launch; including them in the block device mapping for the AMI or the instance has no effect. For more information, see Block device mappings.

A block device mapping always specifies the root volume for the instance. The root volume is either an Amazon EBS volume or an instance store volume. For more information, see Storage for the root device. The root volume is mounted automatically. For instances with an instance store volume for the root volume, the size of this volume varies by AMI, but the maximum size is 10 GB.

You can use a block device mapping to specify additional EBS volumes when you launch your instance, or you can attach additional EBS volumes after your instance is running. For more information, see Amazon EBS volumes.

You can specify the instance store volumes for your instance only when you launch it. You can't attach instance store volumes to an instance after you've launched it.

If you change the instance type, an instance store will not be attached to the new instance type. For more information, see Change the instance type.

The number and size of available instance store volumes for your instance varies by instance type. Some instance types do not support instance store volumes. If the number of instance store volumes in a block device mapping exceeds the number of instance store volumes available to an instance, the additional volumes are ignored. For more information about the instance store volumes supported by each instance type, see Instance store volumes.

If the instance type you choose for your instance supports non-NVMe instance store volumes, you must add them to the block device mapping for the instance when you launch it. NVMe instance store volumes are available by default. After you launch an instance, you must ensure that the instance store volumes for your instance are formatted and mounted before you can use them. The root volume of an instance store-backed instance is mounted automatically.

Add instance store volumes to an AMI

You can create an AMI with a block device mapping that includes instance store volumes. If you launch an instance with an instance type that supports instance store volumes and an AMI that specifies instance store volumes in its block device mapping, the instance includes these instance store volumes. If the number of instance store volumes in the block device mapping exceeds the number of instance store volumes available to the instance, the additional instance store volumes are ignored.

Considerations

  • For M3 instances, specify instance store volumes in the block device mapping of the instance, not the AMI. Amazon EC2 might ignore instance store volumes that are specified only in the block device mapping of the AMI.

  • When you launch an instance, you can omit non-NVMe instance store volumes specified in the AMI block device mapping or add instance store volumes.

New console
To add instance store volumes to an Amazon EBS-backed AMI using the console

  1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/ec2/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select the instance.

  3. Choose Actions, Image and templates, Create image.

  4. On the Create image page, enter a meaningful name and description for your image.

  5. For each instance store volume to add, choose Add volume, from Volume type select an instance store volume, and from Device select a device name. (For more information, see Device names on Linux instances.) The number of available instance store volumes depends on the instance type. For instances with NVMe instance store volumes, the device mapping of these volumes depends on the order in which the operating system enumerates the volumes.

  6. Choose Create image.

Old console
To add instance store volumes to an Amazon EBS-backed AMI using the console

  1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/ec2/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances and select the instance.

  3. Choose Actions, Image, Create Image.

  4. In the Create Image dialog box, type a meaningful name and description for your image.

  5. For each instance store volume to add, choose Add New Volume, from Volume Type select an instance store volume, and from Device select a device name. (For more information, see Device names on Linux instances.) The number of available instance store volumes depends on the instance type. For instances with NVMe instance store volumes, the device mapping of these volumes depends on the order in which the operating system enumerates the volumes.

  6. Choose Create Image.
To add instance store volumes to an AMI using the command line

You can use one of the following commands. For more information about these command line interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2.

Add instance store volumes to an instance

When you launch an instance, the default block device mapping is provided by the specified AMI. If you need additional instance store volumes, you must add them to the instance as you launch it. You can also omit devices specified in the AMI block device mapping.

Considerations

  • For M3 instances, you might receive instance store volumes even if you do not specify them in the block device mapping for the instance.

  • For HS1 instances, no matter how many instance store volumes you specify in the block device mapping of an AMI, the block device mapping for an instance launched from the AMI automatically includes the maximum number of supported instance store volumes. You must explicitly remove the instance store volumes that you don't want from the block device mapping for the instance before you launch it.

To update the block device mapping for an instance using the console

  1. Open the Amazon EC2 console.

  2. From the dashboard, choose Launch instance.

  3. In the Application and OS Images section, select the AMI to use.

  4. In the Configure storage section, the Instance store volumes section lists the instance store volumes that can be attached to the instance. The number of available instance store volumes depends on the instance type.

  5. For each instance store volume to attach, for Device name, select the device name to use.

  6. Configure the remaining instance settings as needed, and then choose Launch instance.

To update the block device mapping for an instance using the command line

You can use one of the following options commands with the corresponding command. For more information about these command line interfaces, see Access Amazon EC2.

Make instance store volumes available on your instance

After you launch an instance, the instance store volumes are available to the instance, but you can't access them until they are mounted. For Linux instances, the instance type determines which instance store volumes are mounted for you and which are available for you to mount yourself. For Windows instances, the EC2Config service mounts the instance store volumes for an instance. The block device driver for the instance assigns the actual volume name when mounting the volume, and the name assigned can be different than the name that Amazon EC2 recommends.

Many instance store volumes are pre-formatted with the ext3 file system. SSD-based instance store volumes that support TRIM instruction are not pre-formatted with any file system. However, you can format volumes with the file system of your choice after you launch your instance. For more information, see Instance store volume TRIM support. For Windows instances, the EC2Config service reformats the instance store volumes with the NTFS file system.

You can confirm that the instance store devices are available from within the instance itself using instance metadata. For more information, see View the instance block device mapping for instance store volumes.

For Windows instances, you can also view the instance store volumes using Windows Disk Management. For more information, see List disks using Windows Disk Management.

For Linux instances, you can view and mount the instance store volumes as described in the following procedure.

To make an instance store volume available on Linux

  1. Connect to the instance using an SSH client. For more information, see Connect to your Linux instance.

  2. Use the df -h command to view the volumes that are formatted and mounted.

    [ec2-user ~]$ df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs        3.8G   72K  3.8G   1% /dev
tmpfs           3.8G     0  3.8G   0% /dev/shm
/dev/nvme0n1p1  7.9G  1.2G  6.6G  15% /

  3. Use the lsblk to view any volumes that were mapped at launch but not formatted and mounted.

    [ec2-user ~]$ lsblk
NAME          MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
nvme0n1       259:1    0    8G  0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1   259:2    0    8G  0 part /
└─nvme0n1p128 259:3    0    1M  0 part
nvme1n1       259:0    0 69.9G  0 disk

  4. To format and mount an instance store volume that was mapped only, do the following:

    1. Create a file system on the device using the mkfs command.

      [ec2-user ~]$ sudo mkfs -t xfs /dev/nvme1n1

    2. Create a directory on which to mount the device using the mkdir command.

      [ec2-user ~]$ sudo mkdir /data

    3. Mount the device on the newly created directory using the mount command.

      [ec2-user ~]$ sudo mount /dev/nvme1n1 /data

For instructions on how to mount an attached volume automatically after reboot, see Automatically mount an attached volume after reboot.