Adding an existing volume to new Instance
Is it possible to launch a new instance with Windows AMI without any volume(to be attached later), or attach an existing gp3 from a free tier instance that I detached from, to the new instance at the time of creating?
Amazon Q says its possible by selecting the existing volume on the "Add Storage" page, but I dont find an add storage when launching a new instance. Its pre-selected and the only options I see are to add type, size, iops etc
P.S. Tried multiple instances, none offer this option.
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Hello.
Is it possible to launch a new instance with Windows AMI without any volume(to be attached later), or attach an existing gp3 from a free tier instance that I detached from, to the new instance at the time of creating?
Does "without any volume" mean that you want to boot without a root volume (C drive in Windows)?
In that case it's not possible.
The root volume contains data such as OS startup information, so EC2 cannot be started without that data.
New EBS volumes can be added when starting EC2 using the management console.
Alternatively, if you specify an EBS volume snapshot when starting EC2, an EBS will be created and attached from the existing EBS snapshot.
To attach an existing EBS volume, you need to follow the steps in the document below.
You can attach an existing EBS volume after launching EC2.
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ebs-attaching-volume.html
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I was hoping there was a way to directly attach a volume as root, because my existing volume is 30GB. If a default root volume gets added alongwith the storage from my snapshot, I exceed the 30gb limit on my free tier? Also using a snapshot involves additional charges I guess?
Alternatively, I wanted to see if theres an option to create just the instance without any storage, and later attach the volume while booting it.
The free tier of EBS is up to 30GB, so if you create two 30GB EBSs, you will be charged because the free tier is exceeded. Snapshots up to 1 GB are free. https://aws.amazon.com/free/?nc1=h_ls&all-free-tier.sort-by=item.additionalFields.SortRank&all-free-tier.sort-order=asc&awsf.Free%20Tier%20Types=*all&awsf.Free%20Tier%20Categories=*all
You cannot start EC2 without creating a root volume.
If use the snapshot Id be creating a new volume. That would make it an additional 30gb on top of my already existing 30Gb EBS? So if I create 5 new instances, Id need 5 new volumes to go along with it.
I dont know if it can be done, but could I provision an instance with 1Gb and once its been created, detach and delete that. So Id have 2 instances and one ebs that I can attach to whichever instance I intend to use?
As you know, a new EBS volume will be created.
It is possible to stop EC2 and detach EBS after creating EC2. Also, it is possible to set the root volume so that it will not be deleted when EC2 is deleted, so I think it would be a good idea to do this setting and leave the root volume. https://repost.aws/knowledge-center/deleteontermination-ebs
Thank you. I had already set the root volume termination to No when I launched my first free tier instance.
I created a t3.medium instance with its default gp2 root volume yesterday and post provisioning, deleted it. Now Im attaching the t2.micro volume to the t3.medium whenever I deploy it.
Thus using one 30GB Gp3 ebs with 2 separate instances. To be clear, is that what you explained to me?