Unknown 414 GB Device / Partition / Volume in EC2 Linux Instance

Question

For about 3 of my Amazon EC2 instances I noticed that each contains two 414GB partitions / devices.

cat /proc/partitions

major minor #blocks name

202 65 6291456 xvde1

202 144 440366080 xvdj

202 160 440366080 xvdk

df -h

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on

/dev/xvde1 5.7G 5.0G 605M 90% /

none 3.7G 0 3.7G 0% /dev/shm

/dev/xvdj 414G 276G 117G 71% /ebg

/dev/xvdk 414G 14G 380G 4% /eby

fdisk -l

Disk /dev/xvde1: 7516 MB, 7516192768 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 913 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk identifier: 0x00000000

_

Disk /dev/xvdj: 450.9 GB, 450934865920 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 54823 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk identifier: 0x00000000

_

Disk /dev/xvdk: 450.9 GB, 450934865920 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 54823 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk identifier: 0x00000000

My Question is that I dont know where these partitions came from and I need to know how I can recreate them in other instances. I have not been able to create an instance with these partitions present.

Also since these partitions are not shown in the volumes section of my EC2 Dashboard I dont know what they are and how much I am being charged for it.

I will appreaciate any help I can get. Thanks in Advance.

Answer 1

They appear to be instance store volumes. These are included in the price of the instance, but need to be explicitly enabled by the AMI or by you at launch.

While you can use instance store volumes to store data, they will get deleted if the instance is stopped or has failed.