Create and Manage EBS Snapshots

Creating Amazon EBS Snapshots

EBS snapshot architecture diagram

ℹ️ Information: Amazon EBS snapshots are point-in-time copies of your volumes that are stored incrementally in Amazon S3. They’re a critical component of data backup, disaster recovery, and volume migration strategies in AWS.

Step-by-Step Snapshot Creation Process

Step 1: Access the EC2 Console

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console

    • Navigate to the EC2 service
    • In the navigation pane, select Snapshots
    • Click Create snapshot

    Accessing snapshot creation interface

Step 2: Select the Resource Type

  1. In the Create snapshot interface:

    • For Resource type, select Instance
    • From the instance list, choose Windows-instance

    Selecting instance for snapshot

Step 3: Configure Snapshot Settings

  1. In the Volumes section:

    • Enable Copy tags from source volume to maintain consistent resource tagging
    • Review the snapshot settings
    • Click Create snapshot

    Configuring snapshot settings

Step 4: Monitor Snapshot Creation

  1. Wait approximately 5 minutes for the snapshot creation process to complete:

    • The Snapshot status will change from pending to completed when finished

    Monitoring snapshot progress

Step 5: Verify Snapshot Creation

  1. Once completed, verify the snapshot appears in your snapshots list:

    • Confirm the snapshot ID, source volume, and creation time are correct

    Verifying successful snapshot creation

Understanding Snapshot Resource Types

💡 Pro Tip: When creating snapshots, you can select from two different resource types, each with distinct behaviors:

  • Volume-based snapshots:

    • Target a specific EBS volume
    • Create a snapshot of only the selected volume
    • Ideal for backing up individual volumes with critical data

  • Instance-based snapshots:

    • Target an entire EC2 instance
    • Automatically create snapshots of all EBS volumes attached to the instance
    • Perfect for consistent backups of multi-volume applications
    • As shown in the example below, selecting an instance with two attached EBS volumes will create snapshots of both volumes simultaneously

    Instance-based snapshot example

🔒 Security Note: EBS snapshots are stored in Amazon S3, but they’re not directly accessible through your S3 buckets. AWS manages the storage automatically and encrypts the data at rest if the source volume was encrypted.