CreateSnapshot
Description
Creates a snapshot of an Amazon EBS volume and stores it in Amazon S3. You can use snapshots for backups, to make identical copies of instance devices, and to save data before shutting down an instance. For more information about Amazon EBS, go to the
When taking a snapshot of a file system, we recommend unmounting it first. This ensures the file system metadata is in a consistent state, that the 'mounted indicator' is cleared, and that all applications using that file system are stopped and in a consistent state. Some file systems, such as xfs, can freeze and unfreeze activity so a snapshot can be made without unmounting.
For Linux/UNIX, enter the following command from the command line.
umount -d /dev/sdh
For Windows, open Disk Management, right-click the volume to unmount, and select Change Drive Letter and Path. Then, select the mount point to remove and click Remove.
Request Parameters
| Name | Description | Required |
|---|---|---|
|
The ID of the Amazon EBS volume of which to take a snapshot. Type: String Default: None |
Yes |
|
Description of the Amazon EBS snapshot. Type: String Default: None Constraints: 256 characters. |
No |
Response Elements
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
|
|
Type: CreateSnapshotResponseType Ancestor: None Children: |
|
The ID of the request. Type: xsd:string Ancestor: Children: None |
|
The ID of the snapshot. Type: xsd:string Ancestor: Children: None |
|
The ID of the volume. Type: xsd:string Ancestor: Children: None |
|
Snapshot state (e.g., Type: xsd:string Ancestor: Children: None |
|
Time stamp when the snapshot was initiated. Type: xsd:dateTime Ancestor: Children: None |
|
The progress of the snapshot, in percentage. Type: xsd:string Ancestor: Children: None |
|
The AWS account ID of the Amazon EBS snapshot owner. Type: xsd:string Ancestor: Children: None |
|
The size of the volume, in GiB. Type: xsd:string Ancestor: Children: None |
|
Description of the snapshot. Type: xsd:string Ancestor: Children: None |
Examples
Example Request
This example creates a snapshot of volume vol-4d826724.
https://ec2.amazonaws.com/?Action=CreateSnapshotAction=CreateSnapshot&VolumeId=vol-4d826724&Description=Daily+Backup&AuthParams&AuthParams
Example Response
<CreateSnapshotResponse xmlns="http://ec2.amazonaws.com/doc/2009-08-15/"> <snapshotId>snap-78a54011</snapshotId> <volumeId>vol-4d826724</volumeId> <volumeSize>10</volumeSize> <status>pending</status> <startTime>2008-05-07T12:51:50.000Z</startTime> <progress>60%</progress> <ownerId>213457642086</ownerId> <description>Daily Backup</description> </CreateSnapshotResponse>