AWS EBS Snapshots Archive

Tanya Garg

27 January 2022

In our previous blog, we have learned how we can encrypt AWS EBS volumes. Now let’s start with how to use the Archive feature for our AWS EBS snapshots.

Elastic Blob Storage(EBS)

EBS volumes are block-level, fast storage devices that are connected to your EC2 Instances. For an EC2 or database, EBS can be used as the primary storage device.

EBS volumes exist independently of your EC2 instances and can be kept even if the EC2 instance that they are associated with is deleted.

EBS volumes are suitable for storing sensitive data and can be utilized to store personally identifiable information (PII) because they provide persistent level storage to your instances.

To safeguard data on the disk from harmful activity in any context where this is the case, it must be encrypted.

AWS EBS Snapshot Archive

Amazon EBS Snapshots Archive is a new storage tier that you may use to store low-cost, long-term snapshots that don’t need to be retrieved frequently or quickly.

When you generate a snapshot, it is saved to the Amazon EBS Snapshot Standard tier (standard tier) by default.

The cost of archived snapshots is $0.0125 per GB-month. For more details, please refer to this Pricing.

How to Archive AWS EBS Snapshot?

Follow the below steps to Archive your existing snapshot –

1. After login into your AWS management console, navigate to the EC2 dashboard then to Snapshot. Choose the snapshot that you want to archive.

From the Action menu, select the ‘Archive snapshot’ option.

2. After carefully reading the archiving message, then click on ‘Archive Snapshot‘.

3. You can check the Archiving status under the ‘Storage tier’ in the Snapshot details section.

Depending upon the size of the snapshot, the status will be changed then to Completed state.

4. Status changed to ‘Archival Completed’.

Your Snapshot has been Archived Successfully.

Step to Restore Snapshot from Archive

Select the Snapshot that you want to Recover and choose ‘Recover snapshot from Archive’ under the Action menu.

2. Restoring an archived snapshot moves it from the archive storage tier to the standard storage tier and then makes it available for use.

Choose the Restore type either permanent or temporary, as we have chosen Permanent.

3. It may take between 24-72 hours to recover the snapshot from the archive depending upon the size of the snapshot.

And you can monitor the recovering status under the ‘Storage tier’ in the Snapshot details section.

Once the snapshot has been retrieved, it will be shown as a regular snapshot in your account.

4. At last, Snapshot has been Recovered Successfully.

Archiving Highlights

The minimum archive period for the snapshot is 90 days.
However, it may take between 24-72 hours to recover the snapshot from the archive depending upon the size of the snapshot.
Archived snapshots are always full snapshots.
When you remove an archived snapshot that matches a Recycle Bin retention rule, the archived snapshot is kept in the Recycle Bin for the duration of the retention rule.
Only snapshots that you own in your account can be archived. To archive, a shared snapshot, first copy the snapshot to your account and then archive the snapshot copy.
After you’ve started the snapshot archiving or restoration process, then you can’t stop it.

Conclusion

EBS snapshots, along with other backup methods, are a natural choice for your data management strategy because of their ability to take regular snapshots and rapidly restore volumes.

EBS Snapshots Archive is a low-cost storage tier that allows you to archive full, point-in-time copies of EBS Snapshots that you need to keep for at least 90 days for regulatory and compliance reasons.

In our next blog, we will be discussing another latest feature of AWS which is Recycle Bin for EBS Snapshots.

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