Describing Volumes

To describe volumes and list information about the volumes that you own, use the ec2-describe-volumes command.

PROMPT>  ec2-describe-volumes

Amazon EC2 returns information similar to the following.

VOLUME vol-4d826724 80          us-east-1a in-use     2010-03-30T13:58:58+0000    standard
ATTACHMENT vol-4d826724 i-6058a509 /dev/sdh attached  2010-03-30T13:54:55+0000
VOLUME vol-50957039 13          us-east-1a available  2010-03-24T08:01:44+0000    standard
VOLUME vol-6682670f 1           us-east-1a in-use     2010-03-30T08:11:01+0000    standard
ATTACHMENT vol-6682670f i-69a54000 /dev/sdh attached  2010-03-30T09:21:14+0000 

This information includes the volume ID, capacity, status (in-use or available), and creation time of each volume. If the volume is attached, an attachment line shows the volume ID, the instance ID to which the volume is attached, the device name exposed to the instance, its status (attaching, attached, detaching, detached), and when it attached.

To describe instances and list volumes that are attached to running instances, use the ec2-describe-instances command.

PROMPT>  ec2-describe-instances

Amazon EC2 returns information similar to the following.

RESERVATION     r-f25e6f9a      111122223333    default
INSTANCE        i-84b435de      ami-b232d0db    ec2-184-73-201-68.compute-1.amazonaws.comdomU-12-31-39-00-86-35.compute-1.internal    running gsg-keypair    0    m1.small 2010-03-30T08:43:48+0000    us-east-1a    aki-94c527fd    ari-96c527ff    monitoring-disabled    184.73.201.68   10.254.137.191    ebs
BLOCKDEVICE     /dev/sda1       vol-cf13b3a6    2010-03-30T08:01:44.000Z    true
BLOCKDEVICE     /dev/sdh        vol-c7f95aae    2010-03-30T13:58:58.000Z    true

For more information about block device mapping, see Block Device Mapping.

To describe volumes and list information about all volumes that you own, use the DescribeVolumes action. Construct the following request.

https://ec2.amazonaws.com/
?Action=DescribeVolumes
&AUTHPARAMS

The following is an example response.

<DescribeVolumesResponse xmlns="http://ec2.amazonaws.com/doc/2013-02-01/">
<volumeSet>
  <item>
    <volumeId>vol-4282672b</volumeId>
    <size>80</size>
    <status>in-use</status>
    <createTime>2008-05-07T11:51:50.000Z</createTime>
    <attachmentSet>
      <item>
        <volumeId>vol-4282672b</volumeId>
        <instanceId>i-6058a509</instanceId>
        <size>80</size>
        <snapshotId>snap-12345678</snapshotId>
        <availabilityZone>us-east-1a</availabilityZone>
        <status>attached</status>
        <attachTime>2008-05-07T12:51:50.000Z</attachTime>
      </item>
    </attachmentSet>
  </item>
  ...
</volumeSet>