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Welcome back to part two of this lesson. In part one we moved an EBS volume between two instances in the same Availability Zone (AZ). In this lesson you’ll learn the correct, supported way to move that same EBS volume to an instance in a different AZ (us-east-1b) and how to move data across AWS regions by copying snapshots.
A screenshot of the Amazon Web Services EC2 console showing a list of EC2 instances (three t2.micro instances marked Running). The lower details pane displays information for instance i-0ac5052d85190c5a9, including its public and private IPv4 addresses.
Key concept: EBS volumes are AZ-scoped. You cannot directly attach an EBS volume in one AZ to an EC2 instance in another AZ. To move data between AZs or regions, use snapshots as the transfer mechanism. High-level process to move data to an instance in a different AZ:
  1. Unmount and detach the volume from the source instance.
  2. Create a snapshot of the volume.
  3. Create a new volume from that snapshot in the target AZ.
  4. Attach and mount the new volume on the target instance.
Before detaching a volume, always unmount the filesystem to avoid data corruption. Also confirm you have appropriate IAM permissions to create snapshots and volumes.

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Unmounting and detaching the volume

On the source instance, unmount the filesystem using the mountpoint you used previously (example: /ebsdemo):
Confirm the device is no longer mounted:
After unmounting, go to the EC2 Console → Volumes, select the volume and choose Detach Volume. Refresh the console until the volume state is available. Note: once the volume is available it still cannot be attached to an instance in a different AZ — snapshots are required to move across AZs.

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Create a snapshot

A snapshot is a point-in-time backup of an EBS volume. In the EC2 console select the volume and choose Create Snapshot. Give it a helpful description (for example, “my snapshot”).
A screenshot of the Amazon Web Services EC2 Snapshots console showing a list of EBS snapshots with IDs, volume sizes, descriptions and a status of Completed. The details pane below shows one snapshot's metadata and an Actions menu (e.g., Create volume from snapshot).
Wait until the snapshot status is completed. Then create a new volume from that snapshot, making sure to choose the correct Availability Zone for your target instance (for example, us-east-1b). When creating the new volume you can also change type, size, and enable encryption if needed.
A screenshot of the AWS console showing the EBS "Volume settings" page. It lists a General Purpose SSD (gp2) volume with size 10 GiB, IOPS 100/3000, and availability zone us-east-1b.

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Attach and mount the new volume on the target instance

After creating the new volume in the target AZ (for example, tagged EBS clone), attach it to the target instance. On the target EC2 instance, verify the block device, identify the filesystem type, create the mount point, and mount it:
Representative console output:
Because the new volume was created from the snapshot, it contains the same filesystem and file contents as the original volume. Quick reference — actions and where to perform them:

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Cross-region movement (copying snapshots)

To move an EBS volume’s data to an instance in a different AWS region, copy the snapshot to the destination region and then create a volume from the copied snapshot in the proper AZ. In the EC2 console, select the source snapshot → Actions → Copy Snapshot. Choose the destination region (for example, us-east-2 for Ohio). Optionally enable encryption or change tags during copy.
A screenshot of the Amazon Web Services "Copy snapshot" page showing a dropdown list of AWS regions (with ca-central-1 highlighted) plus options for encryption and tags.
After the copy completes in the destination region, create a new volume from the copied snapshot and deploy that volume in the correct AZ for your target instance (for example us-east-2a). Then attach and mount the volume on the target instance exactly as described above.
A screenshot of the AWS EC2 console showing the Snapshots page with a 10 GiB snapshot (snap-0a146362f5f66a63e) marked Completed. The details pane shows metadata like owner, volume ID, and the description "copy of mysnapshot."
Once the new volume is available in the destination region and AZ, attach it to your instance, mount it, and verify the data is present.
EBS volumes are specific to Availability Zones. Snapshots are stored per region but can be copied across regions — copying a snapshot lets you recreate the volume in another region and then attach it to instances in that region’s AZs.

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