Expanding the Storage Space of an EBS Volume on Windows

You can increase the storage space of an existing EBS volume without losing the
data on the volume. To do this, you migrate your data to a larger volume and then
extend the file system on the volume to recognize the newly-available space. After
you verify that your new volume is working properly, you can delete the old volume.

Tasks

Migrating Your Data to a Larger Volume

Extending a Windows File System
Deleting the Old Volume

If you need to expand the storage space of a volume on a Linux instance, see
Expanding the Storage Space of a Volume in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux
Instances.

If you create a larger volume, you will be charged for the additional storage. For
more information, see the Amazon Elastic Block Store section on the Amazon EC2
Pricing page.
Migrating Your Data to a Larger Volume

To migrate your data to a larger volume

Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

In the navigation pane, choose Instances and then locate the instance with the
volume that you want to expand.

Make a note of the instance ID and Availability Zone. You will specify this
information when you attach a new volume to the instance later in this topic.

Verify that the instance Shutdown Behavior is set to Stop and not Terminate.

Choose the instance.

From the context-menu (right-click) choose Instance Settings, and then

choose Change Shutdown Behavior.

If the Shutdown behavior is set to Terminate, choose Stop, and then choose
Apply.

If the Shutdown behavior is already set to Stop, then choose Cancel.

Stop the instance. For more information about how to stop an instance, see
Stopping and Starting Your Instances.

Warning

When you stop an instance, the data on any instance store volumes is erased.
Therefore, if you have any data on instance store volumes that you want to keep, be
sure to back it up to persistent storage.

Create a snapshot of the volume to expand.

In the navigation pane, choose Volumes, and then locate the volume you want
to expand.

From the context-menu (right-click) choose the volume that you want to
expand, and then choose Create Snapshot.

Enter information in the Name and Description fields, and then choose Yes,
Create.

Create a new volume from the snapshot.

In the navigation pane, chose Snapshots.

When the status of the snapshot that you just created is set to completed,
choose the snapshot, and then from the context-menu (right-click) choose Create
Volume.

In the Create Volume dialog box, choose the desired volume type and enter
the new volume size. You must also set the Availability Zone to match the instance
Availability Zone. Choose Yes, Create.

Important

If you do not set the Availability Zone to match the instance then you will
not be able to attach the new volume to the instance.

Detach the old volume.

In the navigation pane, choose Volumes, and then choose the old volume from
the list. Make a note of the device name in the Attachment Information column:

i-xxxxxxxx (instance_name):device_name

From the context-menu (right-click) choose the old volume, and then choose
Detach Volume.

In the Detach Volume dialog box, choose Yes, Detach. It may take several
minutes for the volume to detach.

Attach the newly expanded volume

In the navigation pane, choose Volumes.

From the context-menu (right-click) choose the new volume, and then choose
Attach Volume.

Start typing the name or ID of the instance in the Instance field, and then
choose the instance.

Enter the same device name retrieved in Step 8.a, and then choose Yes,
Attach. It is important to note that the volume needs to be reattached to the exact
location it was detached from (for example /dev/sda1).

Restart the instance.

In the navigation pane, choose Instances and then choose the instance you
want to restart.

From the context-menu (right-click) choose Instance State, and then choose
Start.

In the Start Instances dialog box, choose Yes, Start. If the instance fails
to start, and the volume being expanded is a root volume, verify that you attached
the expanded volume using the same device name as the original volume, for
example /dev/sda1.

Important

Only instances running in a VPC retain their public and Elastic IP

addresses when they are stopped. If your instance is running in EC2-Classic, the
EIP address is disassociated when the instance is stopped, so you must re-associate
the EIP after restarting the instance. For more information, see Elastic IP
Addresses. If your instance is running in EC2-Classic but is not using an EIP, you
must retrieve the new public DNS name for your instance in order to connect to it
after it restarts.

After the instance has started, you can check the file system size to see if your
instance recognizes the larger volume space.

If the size does not reflect your newly-expanded volume, you must extend the file
system of your device so that your instance can use the new space. For more
information, see Extending a Windows File System.
Extending a Windows File System

In Windows, you use the Disk Management utility to extend the disk size to the new
size of the volume.

To extend a Windows file system

Log in to your Windows instance using Remote Desktop.

Open the Disk Management utility.

On the Windows Server 2012 Start screen, type disk management and choose
Create and format hard disk partitions in the Search pane.

On Windows Server 2008 type diskmgmt.msc in the Run dialog and press Enter.
Windows Server Disk Management Utility

Right-click the expanded drive and select Extend Volume.

Windows Server Disk Management Utility

In the Extend Volume Wizard, choose Next, then set the Select the amount of
space in MB field to the number of megabytes by which to extend the volume.
Normally, you set this to the maximum available space. Complete the wizard.
Windows Server Extend Volume Wizard

Deleting the Old Volume

After the new volume has been attached and extended in the instance, you can delete
the old volume if it is no longer needed.

To delete the old volume

In the Amazon EC2 console, choose Volumes in the navigation pane and then
choose the volume you want to delete.

From the context-menu (right-click) choose Delete Volume.

In the Delete Volume dialog box, choose Yes, Delete.