Make an Amazon EBS volume available for use

After you attach an Amazon EBS volume to your instance it is exposed as a block device. You can format the volume with any file system and then mount it. After you make the EBS volume available for use, you can access it in the same ways that you access any other volume. Any data written to this file system is written to the EBS volume and is transparent to applications using the device.

You can take snapshots of your EBS volume for backup purposes or to use as a baseline when you create another volume. For more information, see Amazon EBS snapshots.

If the EBS volume you are preparing for use is greater than 2 TiB, you must use a GPT partitioning scheme to access the entire volume. For more information, see Amazon EBS volume constraints.

Format and mount an attached volume

Suppose that you have an EC2 instance with an EBS volume for the root device, /dev/xvda, and that you have just attached an empty EBS volume to the instance using /dev/sdf. Use the following procedure to make the newly attached volume available for use.

To format and mount an EBS volume on Linux

Connect to your instance using SSH. For more information, see Connect to your Linux instance.
The device could be attached to the instance with a different device name than you specified in the block device mapping. For more information, see device names on Linux instances. Use the lsblk command to view your available disk devices and their mount points (if applicable) to help you determine the correct device name to use. The output of lsblk removes the /dev/ prefix from full device paths.

The following is example output for an instance built on the Nitro System, which exposes EBS volumes as NVMe block devices. The root device is /dev/nvme0n1, which has two partitions named nvme0n1p1 and nvme0n1p128. The attached volume is /dev/nvme1n1, which has no partitions and is not yet mounted.
```
[ec2-user ~]$ lsblk
NAME          MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
nvme1n1       259:0    0  10G  0 disk
nvme0n1       259:1    0   8G  0 disk
-nvme0n1p1    259:2    0   8G  0 part /
-nvme0n1p128  259:3    0   1M  0 part
```
The following is example output for a T2 instance. The root device is /dev/xvda, which has one partition named xvda1. The attached volume is /dev/xvdf, which has no partitions and is not yet mounted.
```
[ec2-user ~]$ lsblk
NAME    MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
xvda    202:0    0    8G  0 disk
-xvda1  202:1    0    8G  0 part /
xvdf    202:80   0   10G  0 disk
```
Determine whether there is a file system on the volume. New volumes are raw block devices, and you must create a file system on them before you can mount and use them. Volumes that were created from snapshots likely have a file system on them already; if you create a new file system on top of an existing file system, the operation overwrites your data.

Use one or both of the following methods to determine whether there is a file system on the volume:
- Use the file -s command to get information about a specific device, such as its file system type. If the output shows simply data, as in the following example output, there is no file system on the device
```
[ec2-user ~]$ sudo file -s /dev/xvdf
/dev/xvdf: data
```
  If the device has a file system, the command shows information about the file system type. For example, the following output shows a root device with the XFS file system.
```
[ec2-user ~]$ sudo file -s /dev/xvda1
/dev/xvda1: SGI XFS filesystem data (blksz 4096, inosz 512, v2 dirs)
```
- Use the lsblk -f command to get information about all of the devices attached to the instance.
```
[ec2-user ~]$ sudo lsblk -f
```
  For example, the following output shows that there are three devices attached to the instances—nvme1n1, nvme0n1, and nvme2n1. The first column lists the devices and their partitions. The FSTYPE column shows the file system type for each device. If the column is empty for a specific device, it means that the device does not have a file system. In this case, device nvme1n1 and partition nvme0n1p1 on device nvme0n1 are both formatted using the XFS file system, while device nvme2n1 and partition nvme0n1p128 on device nvme0n1 do not have file systems.
```
NAME		FSTYPE	LABEL	UUID						MOUNTPOINT
nvme1n1	        xfs		7f939f28-6dcc-4315-8c42-6806080b94dd
nvme0n1
├─nvme0n1p1	xfs	    /	90e29211-2de8-4967-b0fb-16f51a6e464c	        /
└─nvme0n1p128
nvme2n1
```
If the output from these commands show that there is no file system on the device, you must create one.
(Conditional) If you discovered that there is a file system on the device in the previous step, skip this step. If you have an empty volume, use the mkfs -t command to create a file system on the volume.

Warning
Do not use this command if you're mounting a volume that already has data on it (for example, a volume that was created from a snapshot). Otherwise, you'll format the volume and delete the existing data.
```
[ec2-user ~]$ sudo mkfs -t xfs /dev/xvdf
```
If you get an error that mkfs.xfs is not found, use the following command to install the XFS tools and then repeat the previous command:
```
[ec2-user ~]$ sudo yum install xfsprogs
```
Use the mkdir command to create a mount point directory for the volume. The mount point is where the volume is located in the file system tree and where you read and write files to after you mount the volume. The following example creates a directory named /data.
```
[ec2-user ~]$ sudo mkdir /data
```
Mount the volume or partition at the mount point directory you created in the previous step.

If the volume has no partitions, use the following command and specify the device name to mount the entire volume.
```
[ec2-user ~]$ sudo mount /dev/xvdf /data
```
If the volume has partitions, use the following command and specify the partition name to mount a partition.
```
[ec2-user ~]$ sudo mount /dev/xvdf1 /data
```
Review the file permissions of your new volume mount to make sure that your users and applications can write to the volume. For more information about file permissions, see File security at The Linux Documentation Project.
The mount point is not automatically preserved after rebooting your instance. To automatically mount this EBS volume after reboot, follow the next procedure.

Automatically mount an attached volume after reboot

To mount an attached EBS volume on every system reboot, add an entry for the device to the /etc/fstab file.

You can use the device name, such as /dev/xvdf, in /etc/fstab, but we recommend using the device's 128-bit universally unique identifier (UUID) instead. Device names can change, but the UUID persists throughout the life of the partition. By using the UUID, you reduce the chances that the system becomes unbootable after a hardware reconfiguration. For more information, see Map Amazon EBS volumes to NVMe device names.

To mount an attached volume automatically after reboot

(Optional) Create a backup of your /etc/fstab file that you can use if you accidentally destroy or delete this file while editing it.
```
[ec2-user ~]$ sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.orig
```
Use the blkid command to find the UUID of the device. Make a note of the UUID of the device that you want to mount after reboot. You'll need it in the following step.

For example, the following command shows that there are two devices mounted to the instance, and it shows the UUIDs for both devices.
```
[ec2-user ~]$ sudo blkid
/dev/xvda1: LABEL="/" UUID="ca774df7-756d-4261-a3f1-76038323e572" TYPE="xfs" PARTLABEL="Linux" PARTUUID="02dcd367-e87c-4f2e-9a72-a3cf8f299c10"
/dev/xvdf: UUID="aebf131c-6957-451e-8d34-ec978d9581ae" TYPE="xfs"
```
For Ubuntu 18.04 use the lsblk command.
```
[ec2-user ~]$ sudo lsblk -o +UUID
```
Open the /etc/fstab file using any text editor, such as nano or vim.
```
[ec2-user ~]$ sudo vim /etc/fstab
```
Add the following entry to /etc/fstab to mount the device at the specified mount point. The fields are the UUID value returned by blkid (or lsblk for Ubuntu 18.04), the mount point, the file system, and the recommended file system mount options. For more information about the required fields, run man fstab to open the fstab manual.

In the following example, we mount the device with UUID aebf131c-6957-451e-8d34-ec978d9581ae to mount point /data and we use the xfs file system. We also use the defaults and nofail flags. We specify 0 to prevent the file system from being dumped, and we specify 2 to indicate that it is a non-root device.
```
UUID=aebf131c-6957-451e-8d34-ec978d9581ae  /data  xfs  defaults,nofail  0  2
```
Note
If you ever boot your instance without this volume attached (for example, after moving the volume to another instance), the nofail mount option enables the instance to boot even if there are errors mounting the volume. Debian derivatives, including Ubuntu versions earlier than 16.04, must also add the nobootwait mount option.
To verify that your entry works, run the following commands to unmount the device and then mount all file systems in /etc/fstab. If there are no errors, the /etc/fstab file is OK and your file system will mount automatically after it is rebooted.
```
[ec2-user ~]$ sudo umount /data
[ec2-user ~]$ sudo mount -a
```
If you receive an error message, address the errors in the file.

Warning
Errors in the /etc/fstab file can render a system unbootable. Do not shut down a system that has errors in the /etc/fstab file.

If you are unsure how to correct errors in /etc/fstab and you created a backup file in the first step of this procedure, you can restore from your backup file using the following command.
```
[ec2-user ~]$ sudo mv /etc/fstab.orig /etc/fstab
```

Use one of the following methods to make a volume available on a Windows instance.

PowerShell

To make all EBS volumes with raw partitions available to use with Windows PowerShell

Log in to your Windows instance using Remote Desktop. For more information, see Connect to your Windows instance.
On the taskbar, open the Start menu, and choose Windows PowerShell.
Use the provided series of Windows PowerShell commands within the opened PowerShell prompt. The script performs the following actions by default:
1. Stops the ShellHWDetection service.
2. Enumerates disks where the partition style is raw.
3. Creates a new partition that spans the maximum size the disk and partition type will support.
4. Assigns an available drive letter.
5. Formats the file system as NTFS with the specified file system label.
6. Starts the ShellHWDetection service again.
```
Stop-Service -Name ShellHWDetection
Get-Disk | Where PartitionStyle -eq 'raw' | Initialize-Disk -PartitionStyle MBR -PassThru | New-Partition -AssignDriveLetter -UseMaximumSize | Format-Volume -FileSystem NTFS -NewFileSystemLabel "Volume Label" -Confirm:$false
Start-Service -Name ShellHWDetection
```

DiskPart command line tool

To make an EBS volume available to use with the DiskPart command line tool

Log in to your Windows instance using Remote Desktop. For more information, see Connect to your Windows instance.
Determine the disk number that you want to make available:
1. Open the Start menu, and select Windows PowerShell.
2. Use the Get-Disk Cmdlet to retrieve a list of available disks.
3. In the command output, note the Number corresponding to the disk that you're making available.
Create a script file to execute DiskPart commands:
1. Open the Start menu, and select File Explorer.
2. Navigate to a directory, such as C:\, to store the script file.
3. Choose or right-click an empty space within the folder to open the dialog box, position the cursor over New to access the context menu, and then choose Text Document.
4. Name the text file diskpart.txt.
Add the following commands to the script file. You may need to modify the disk number, partition type, volume label, and drive letter. The script performs the following actions by default:
1. Selects disk 1 for modification.
2. Configures the volume to use the master boot record (MBR) partition structure.
3. Formats the volume as an NTFS volume.
4. Sets the volume label.
5. Assigns the volume a drive letter.
Warning
If you're mounting a volume that already has data on it, do not reformat the volume or you will delete the existing data.
```
select disk 1 
attributes disk clear readonly 
online disk noerr
convert mbr 
create partition primary 
format quick fs=ntfs label="volume_label" 
assign letter="drive_letter"
```
For more information, see DiskPart Syntax and Parameters.
Open a command prompt, navigate to the folder in which the script is located, and run the following command to make a volume available for use on the specified disk:
```
C:\> diskpart /s diskpart.txt
```

Disk Management utility

To make an EBS volume available to use with the Disk Management utility

Log in to your Windows instance using Remote Desktop. For more information, see Connect to your Windows instance.
Start the Disk Management utility. On the taskbar, open the context (right-click) menu for the Windows logo, and choose Disk Management.

Note
In Windows Server 2008, choose Start, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Disk Management.
Bring the volume online. In the lower pane, open the context (right-click) menu for the left panel for the disk for the EBS volume. Choose Online.
(Conditional) If the disk is not initialized, you must initialize it before you can use it. If the disk is already initialized, skip this step.

Warning
If you're mounting a volume that already has data on it (for example, a public data set, or a volume that you created from a snapshot), do not reformat the volume or you will delete the existing data.

If the disk is not initialized, initialize it as follows:
1. Open the context (right-click) menu for the left panel for the disk, and choose Initialize Disk.
2. In the Initialize Disk dialog box, select a partition style, and choose OK.
Open the context (right-click) menu for the right panel for the disk, and choose New Simple Volume.
In the New Simple Volume Wizard, choose Next.
If you want to change the default maximum value, specify the Simple volume size in MB, and then choose Next.
Specify a preferred drive letter, if necessary, within the Assign the following drive letter dropdown, and then choose Next.
Specify a Volume Label and adjust the default settings as necessary, and then choose Next.
Review your settings, and then choose Finish to apply the modifications and close the New Simple Volume wizard.