An Elastic Block Store (EBS) Volume is a network-attached block storage device for EC2 instances.
- Persists data independently from the instance lifecycle.
- One-to-one attachment: can be attached to only one EC2 instance at a time (at the CCP level).
- Bound to a specific Availability Zone.
Key Characteristics
- Network drive – communicates over the network, may introduce latency.
- Hot-swappable – can detach from one instance and attach to another in the same AZ.
- AZ-bound – cannot attach across AZs; to move, create a snapshot and restore in another AZ.
- Provisioned capacity – billed for allocated size (GB) and provisioned IOPS; capacity can be increased.