How to delete an Elastic Block Store Volume on AWS

Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) provides block-level storage volumes for use with Amazon EC2 instances. When you attach an EBS volume to an EC2 instance, you can use it to store data that needs to persist across instance reboots and replacements. EBS volumes are highly suitable for essential and long-term data storage. This article will discuss how to delete an Elastic Block Store Volume on AWS. Here are the steps to Fix MDT accidental OS deletion, how to Delete or Rename and Create a Protected Organisation Unit in AD, and how to Backup Mac with Veeam Agent for Mac to Synology DS923+ NAS.

You can’t delete a volume if it’s attached to an instance. To delete a volume, you must first detach it. You can check if a volume is attached to an instance, from the AWS console. When a volume is attached to an instance, it’s in the in-use state. But if the volume is detached from an instance, it’s in the “available” state, then you can delete this volume.

There are numerous reasons why you may want to delete an EBS volume. If you are eligible for a free tier, having an EBS associated to an instance could incur more cost. You may want to learn how to create an AWS budget.

To mitigate this issue, you should terminate the volume when it is not needed. Once you delete this volume, your account will be safe from any unwanted charges from Amazon.

Please see How to create an Elastic Beanstalk environment in AWS, how to Add an EBS volume to AWS EC2 via the AWS Console and CLI, and “how to Allocate, Associate, Disassociate and Release Elastic IP Address from an EC2 Instance“.

Delete an EBS Volume

Login to your AWS account and navigate to the EC2 console, or navigate to the following URL.

Select the volume to delete and choose Actions and select Delete volume

You will be prompted to confirm the deletion. Type “delete” in the box (field) as shown below.

When you are done confirming the deletion. Click on the Delete button as shown below.

The EBS volume has been successfully deleted.

I hope you found this guide useful on how to delete an Elastic Block Store Volume on AWS very useful. Please feel free to leave a comment below.