Cant Modify or Resize Amazon EBS Volume

Question

Cant Modify or Resize Amazon EBS Volume. In us-east-1d N. Virginia. The instance it's connected to is t2.medium CentOS 7.

Any help would be appreciated.

Garlan

Answer 1

Update: the answer below was correct when written, but was subsequently superceded by this announcement on June 28, 2018:

Starting today, Elastic Volumes extends support to Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) magnetic (standard) volume type. You can now dynamically increase capacity or change the type of magnetic (standard) volumes with no downtime or performance impact using a simple API call or a few console clicks.

https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/06/amazon-ebs-extends-elastic-volumes-to-support-ebs-magnetic--standard--volume-type/

The issue that originally triggered this question should no longer occur.

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In the screen shot, the volume type shows standard.

That's a previous generation magnetic volume.

The previous generation Magnetic volume type is not supported by the volume modification methods [...]

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/limitations.html

Those can't be resized, so the option is grayed out. Your new instance from the AMI probably has a gp2 SSD volume, which does support resize.

Spooner

Is there any alternative to do so? My C:/ drive is going to be full i want to extend – Polymyxin

@FazalHussain with standard volumes, you have to stop the instance, take a snapshot, create a new larger volume from the snapshot, then detach the old volume and attach the new volume. You can reduce the downtime by taking an initial "throw-away" snapshot while the instance is running, before completing the steps above. Do not use the throw-away snapshot for anything, just create it before stopping the instance, because it will help the second snapshot (which must be taken with the instance stopped) complete much, much faster. – Spooner

Thank you. I will try it – Polymyxin

Apparently, this is not the case anymore. You can modify the size of magnetic (standard) volumes now, even without stopping the instance. However, it may need a restart if it was attached before November 2016 according to this -> docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/limitations.html – Freddiefreddy

@Freddiefreddy thanks. It seems you are correct. Answer updated. – Spooner

Answer 2

Stop the instance that the EBS volume is attached to. Then the modify option should be available for use.

If that doesn't work then try detaching the volume.

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ebs-expand-volume.html

Revisal

Try detaching the volume. – Revisal

How did you launch your ec2 instance? – Revisal

I just launched an instance with that image and the option was available for me. Are you using t2.micro for the instance type? – Revisal

No, t2.medium. What I ended up doing was creating a new instance with that same AMI in a different region and it magically works. Weird. – Garlan

I keep trying to replicate your scenario but the option is still available for me. Good thing you got it working! – Revisal

:) Did you try in N. Virginia region? – Garlan

Yes :) why don't you try again. Maybe it will work. I'm not sure what you did after launching the instance that grayed out the modify option. – Revisal

Answer 3

As @michael-sqlbot says, you are using magnetic "standard" EBS volume, you can convert to ssd "gp2" volume following these steps:

1. Create snapshot of your EBS volume
2. Create new PIOPS/General Purpose SSD volume from your EBS snapshot
3. Detaching existing attached magnetic volume from the instance
4. Attach new PIOPS/General Purpose SSD volume

More info: https://n2ws.com/blog/how-to-guides/how-to-change-your-ebs-volume-type

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