Time-based copies for Amazon EBS snapshots
Time-based copies can help you meet compliance or business requirements for data replication by ensuring that your EBS snapshots are copied, within and across AWS Regions, in a specified timeframe. Time-based snapshot copy can also help backup administrators meet stringent disaster recovery requirements (Recovery Point Objectives and Recovery Time Objectives), and it improves development agility by ensuring predictable copying times for snapshots.
With time-based snapshot copy operations, you specify a completion duration, between 15 minutes and 48 hours, in which the copy is to be completed. The completion duration must be specified in 15 minute increments.
Quotas
The following quotas apply to time-based snapshot copy operations:
| Quota | Description | Quota value | Adjustable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Snapshot copy operation throughput quota | The maximum throughput that can be achieved by a single time-based snapshot copy operation. | 500 MiB/s | No |
| Cumulative snapshot copy throughput quota | The maximum cumulative throughput that can be achieved by concurrent time-based snapshot copy operations between a source and destination Region. | 2,000 MiB/s | Yes |
When you initiate a time-based snapshot copy operation, you specify a completion duration. The throughput used by the request is determined by the size of the snapshot data and the requested completion duration. For example, if you copy a snapshot that has 225,000 MiB (0.214 TiB) of data, and you request a completion duration of 15 minutes, the throughput is 250 MiB/s (225,000 MiB ÷ 15 minutes = 250 MiB/s).
If you initiate a time-based snapshot copy request and your available cumulative snapshot copy throughput quota is:
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greater than or equal to the required throughput rate, the copy completes within the requested completion duration.
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less than the required throughput rate but greater than zero, the request succeeds but it will take longer than you requested. The copy is completed using your available throughput quota.
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zero (quota reached), the request fails.
Determine your completion duration
The minimum completion duration you can request for a time-based snapshot copy operation is 15 minutes, and the maximum completion duration you can request is 48 hours. The completion duration must be specified in 15 minute increments.
Concurrent time-based snapshot copy operations
You can perform concurrent time-based snapshot copy operations between the same source and destination Regions, as long as the combined throughput of all of the concurrent operations is within your cumulative snapshot copy throughput quota (2,000 MiB/s by default).
To determine whether you can achieve your required completion duration for your existing snapshots, divide the combined size of all of your snapshots by your required completion duration to determine the required throughput rate.
Tip
If you don't know the exact size of the data in your snapshots, you can use the volume size as a proxy instead.
required throughput rate = combined snapshot size ÷ required completion duration
If the required throughput rate is less than your cumulative snapshot copy throughput quota, you can achieve your required completion duration. If the required throughput rate is greater than your cumulative snapshot copy throughput quota, we recommend that you request a quota increase that is at least 10% higher than your required throughput rate.
Tip
The Amazon EC2 console provides a calculator that you can use to check how much snapshot data
you copied between two Regions over a specific period, and the minimum achievable completion
duration that you can achieve for that amount of data, based on a specific cumulative snapshot
copy throughput quota. The calculator uses the SnapshotCopyBytesTransferred CloudWatch
metric to calculate data copied between two Regions over a period. To open the calculator, in
the Amazon EC2 console navigation panel, select Snapshots, and
then choose Actions, Launch copy
duration calculator.
Individual time-based snapshot copy operations
You can calculate the minimum completion duration for an individual time-based snapshot copy operation by dividing the size of the snapshot data by the snapshot copy operation throughput quota (500 MiB/s).
Tip
If you don't know the exact size of the data in your snapshot, you can use the volume size as a proxy instead.
minimum completion duration = Max(15 minutes, (snapshot data size ÷ 500 MiB/s)
For example, the minimum completion duration for a snapshot with 900,000 MiB of data is 30 minutes.
minimum completion duration = Max(15 minutes, (900,000 MiB ÷ 500 MiB/s) = Max(15 minutes, 30 minutes) = 30 minutes
Considerations
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You can initiate time-based snapshot copy operations when copying snapshots within the same Region or when copying snapshots across Regions.
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If you initiate two time-based copy operations for the same snapshot , the second copy operation's completion duration starts only after the first copy operation completes.
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Time-based copy operations are not supported with AWS Outposts, Local Zones, and Wavelength Zones.
Monitoring
You can monitor the progress of time-based snapshot copy operations
using the Amazon EC2 console and the AWS CLI. In the console, select the snapshot and then, in
the Details tab, inspect the
Progress field. With the AWS CLI, inspect the Progress output
element in the
describe-snapshots command response.
You can check whether a time-based snapshot copy operation completed
within the requested completion duration by checking the difference between the
Started and Completed
times in the console, or StartTime and CompletionTime in the
describe-snapshots response.
You can also use the copySnapshot Amazon EventBridge event to monitor the outcome of
time-based copy operations. The event indicates whether the operation completed and whether
the requested completion duration was met. If the completion duration was not met, the event
includes more information about the cause. For more information, see EBS snapshot events.
Pricing and billing
Note
Similar to standard snapshot copy operations, if you copy a snapshot to a new Region, a full (non-incremental) copy is created, which results in additional storage costs. Subsequent copies of the same snapshot are incremental. Additionally, if you use external or cross-region data transfers, additional Amazon EC2 data transfer charges will apply.
Additional charges apply for time-based snapshot copy operations. Time-based copy operations are charged at a rate that is based on the requested completion duration, per GiB of snapshot data copied. The fixed rates are as follows:
Note
The completion duration must be specified in 15 minute increments. The minimum completion duration is 15 minutes, and the maximum is 48 hours.
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15 minutes — $0.020 per GiB of data
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30 minutes and 45 minutes — $0.018 per GiB of data
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1 hour to 1 hour 45 minutes — $0.016 per GiB of data
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2 hours to 3 hours 45 minutes — $0.014 per GiB of data
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4 hours to 7 hours 45 minutes — $0.012 per GiB of data
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8 hours to 15 hours 45 minutes — $0.010 per GiB of data
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16 hours or more — $0.005 per GiB of data
For example, if you copy a snapshot with 3,000 GiB of data with a completion duration of 8 hours, you are billed $30 ($0.010 x 3,000 GiB).
If you initiate a time-based copy operation, but the requested completion duration is not met due to you exceeding a quota, you are billed based on the actual completion duration instead of the requested completion duration. For example, if you request a completion duration of 1 hour, but the operation completes in 2 hours, you are billed based on the rate for the 2 hour completion duration.
If Amazon EBS is not able to achieve the requested completion duration or if a request is canceled due to service-side issues, you are not billed the additional charges for the time-based snapshot copy operation.
If you delete the snapshot copy while the time-based snapshot copy operation is still in progress, you are billed for the data copied up to that point at the rate corresponding to the specified completion duration.
