Increasing AWS EC2 ubuntu instance disk space

Question

i have a ubuntu instance(CRON server) of volume size 50gb. I want to increase its size to 100gb+

Here are the steps i want to follow,

1) create a snapshot of the volume attached to CRON server.

2) create a volume with the newly created snapshot, by specifying the size you need. In my case 100gb.

3) detach the existing volume for cron server by running the command

ec2-detach-volume old_volume_id cron_instance_id sda1

4) attach the new volume (i.e. 100gb ones) to cronserver

ec2-attach-volume new_volume_id cron_instance_id sda1

please correct if am missing or not using a correct step.

Answer 1

No, you're missing something - you end up with your old partition size.

Here's how you do it (pay attention to resize2fs / xfs_growfs commands):

Resizing the Root Disk on a Running EBS Boot EC2 Instance.

Example:

# In case your Filesystem is either ext2, ext3, or ext4
$ sudo resize2fs /dev/sda1

# Or if you have XFS
$ sudo apt-get install -y xfsprogs
$ sudo xfs_growfs /

Answer 2

As Chris Moore mentioned in a comment, the disk space is automatically increased on boot for any modern EC2 Ubuntu server, making this much easier. Here's the steps:

1. Open EC2 -> Elastic Block Store -> Volumes. Find the volume you want to increase by looking at the Attachment Information column.
2. Select the volume and click Actions -> Modify Volume, then select the new volume size you want.
3. Open EC2 -> Instances -> Instances, select your EC2 instance and click Actions -> Instance State -> Reboot.

You're done! 🎉

Answer 3

In addition to the answer above, Amazon put out a guide as well. I used both resources when I was expanding my volume.