Create Amazon EBS snapshots - Amazon EBS
Snapshot encryptionSnapshot destinationsAutomating snapshotsConsiderations for creating snapshots

Create Amazon EBS snapshots

You can create an Amazon EBS snapshot of an Amazon EBS volume to create a point-in-time backup of that volume. You can either create snapshots of individual Amazon EBS volumes, or you can create multi-volume snapshots of all, or a subset, of the volumes attached to an Amazon EC2 instance.

Snapshot creation is asynchronous. The snapshot is created immediately, but it remains in the pending state until all of data has been transferred to Amazon S3. This can take several hours to complete, depending on the number of modified blocks on the volume. You can continue to use the volume during this time without impacting the snapshot. The snapshot includes only the data that was written to the volume at the time the snapshot was requested. It does not include data that has been cached by applications or the operating system.

Tip

To ensure consistent and complete snapshots, we recommend that you pause writes to the volume before you create the snapshot. If you can't pause writes to the volume, we recommend that you unmount the volume, from within the instance, before you create the snapshot. You can remount and resume writes once the snapshot enters the pending state.

If you create a snapshot of a volume that serves as the root device for an Amazon EC2 instance, we recommend that you stop the instance before taking the snapshot.

Topics

Snapshot encryption

A snapshot automatically gets the same encryption status as the volume from which it is created. Snapshots created from unencrypted volumes are not encrypted. Snapshots created from encrypted volumes are automatically encrypted using the same KMS key as the volume.

Tip

If you need to create an encrypted snapshot from an unencrypted volume, first create the unencrypted snapshot of the volume, and then create an encrypted copy of that snapshot.

Snapshot destinations

The location of the source resource (volume or instance) determines where you can create snapshots.

  • If the source resource is in a Region, you must create snapshots in the same Region as the source resource.

  • If the source resource is in a Local Zone, you can create snapshots in the same Local Zone or in its parent Region. For more information, see Local snapshots in Dedicated Local Zones.

  • If the source resource is on an Outpost, you can create snapshots on the same Outpost or in its parent Region. For more information, see Amazon EBS local snapshots on Outposts.

Automating snapshots

You can automate snapshot creation using Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager and AWS Backup.

Considerations for creating snapshots

  • We recommend that you do not create snapshots of volumes that are attached to Amazon EC2 instances that are hibernated or that are enabled for hibernation. For more information, see How Amazon EC2 instance hibernation works.

  • Although you can take a snapshot of a volume while a previous snapshot of that volume is in the pending status, having multiple snapshots in the pending state for the same volume can result in reduced volume performance until the snapshots complete.

  • There are limits on the number of snapshots you can have in the pending state, and on the number of concurrent snapshots you can request per volume type. For more information, see Quotas for Amazon EBS. If you exceed one of these quotas, wait for the current snapshots to complete and then try again.