AWS extend disk volume on an EC2 instance

There may have certain situation that we need to extend disk volume on an instance.

Create a new volumn on AWS

Visit EC2 service, and click on the Volumes on the left menu. Then create volume

• Volume Type: for normal case, just select General Purpose SSD, unless you have a high-write usage, then you can choose Provisioned IOPS SSD
• Size (GiB): Just put the size you need
• Availability Zone: Make sure you select the zone that same as the instance you want to extend
• Snapshot ID: Leave it
• Encryption: Leave it

Then create

Now you can see that the Status is available. Right-click the row, and click on Attach Volume

Select the instance you want to extend

This one just leave it, and Attach it.

Server config

Now ssh into the instance

ubuntu@ip-xxx-31-xx-xx:~$ df -h

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev            492M   12K  492M   1% /dev
tmpfs           100M  344K   99M   1% /run
/dev/xvda1      7.8G  1.6G  5.8G  22% /
none            4.0K     0  4.0K   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
none            5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
none            497M     0  497M   0% /run/shm
none            100M     0  100M   0% /run/user

The volume not mounted yet, so cannot see here

ubuntu@ip-xxx-31-xx-xx:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/xvda: 8589 MB, 8589934592 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1044 cylinders, total 16777216 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/xvda1   *       16065    16771859     8377897+  83  Linux

Disk /dev/xvdf: 21.5 GB, 21474836480 bytes          <----------------- NEW DISK
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2610 cylinders, total 41943040 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/xvdf doesn't contain a valid partition table

Now need to format it to ext4 filesystem

ubuntu@ip-xxx-31-xx-xx:~$ sudo mkfs -t ext4 /dev/xvdf
mke2fs 1.42.9 (4-Feb-2014)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks
1310720 inodes, 5242880 blocks
262144 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=4294967296
160 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
8192 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks: 
    32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208, 
    4096000

Allocating group tables: done                            
Writing inode tables: done                            
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done   

Last is to mount it to /storage (it can be any path you like)

Edit the file /etc/fstab (you may use nano if you’re not familiar with vim)

Remember to backup before edit the file

ubuntu@ip-xxx-31-xx-xx:$ sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.orig
ubuntu@ip-xxx-31-xx-xx:$ sudo vim /etc/fstab

Update the content

LABEL=cloudimg-rootfs   /         ext4   defaults,discard        0 0   <------ THIS IS THE DEFAULT LINE
/dev/xvdf               /storage  ext4   defaults                0 0

Now create a folder for that new disk volume

ubuntu@ip-xxx-31-xx-xx:$ sudo mkdir /storage

Then mount all

ubuntu@ip-xxx-31-xx-xx:$ sudo mount -a

Double check it

ubuntu@ip-xxx-31-xx-xx:$ df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev            492M   12K  492M   1% /dev
tmpfs           100M  344K   99M   1% /run
/dev/xvda1      7.8G  1.6G  5.8G  22% /
none            4.0K     0  4.0K   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
none            5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
none            497M     0  497M   0% /run/shm
none            100M     0  100M   0% /run/user
/dev/xvdf        20G   44M   19G   1% /storage   <------- THIS IS NEW