AWS cost saving tips – EBS Volumes

A trivial cost saving tip for checking if you are spending money in your AWS environment on unused resources. This is especially appropriate when using provisioned IOPS EBS volumes.

$ ec2-describe-volumes | grep available

VOLUME	vol-44dff904	8	snap-d86d0884	us-east-1b	available	2014-08-01T14:11:24+0000	standard
VOLUME	vol-62dff922	100		us-east-1b	available	2014-08-01T14:11:24+0000	io1	1000
VOLUME	vol-15dff955	8	snap-d86d0884	us-east-1b	available	2014-08-01T14:11:24+0000	standard
VOLUME	vol-80a88ec0	8	snap-d86d0884	us-east-1b	available	2014-08-01T15:12:54+0000	standard
VOLUME	vol-ca82a48a	100		us-east-1b	available	2014-08-01T16:13:49+0000	standard
VOLUME	vol-5d79581d	8	snap-d86d0884	us-east-1b	available	2014-08-01T18:27:01+0000	standard
VOLUME	vol-baf9dbfa	8	snap-d86d0884	us-east-1b	available	2014-08-03T18:20:59+0000	standard
VOLUME	vol-53ffdd13	8	snap-d86d0884	us-east-1b	available	2014-08-03T18:25:52+0000	standard
VOLUME	vol-ade7daed	8	snap-d86d0884	us-east-1b	available	2014-08-13T20:10:46+0000	standard
VOLUME	vol-34e2df74	8	snap-065a2e52	us-east-1b	available	2014-08-13T20:26:17+0000	standard
VOLUME	vol-cacef38a	100	snap-280ffb7f	us-east-1b	available	2014-08-13T21:19:18+0000	standard
VOLUME	vol-41350a01	8	snap-f23ccba5	us-east-1b	available	2014-08-14T16:54:27+0000	standard
VOLUME	vol-51350a11	100	snap-fc3ccbab	us-east-1b	available	2014-08-14T16:54:27+0000	standard
VOLUME	vol-912f10d1	8	snap-96ee24c1	us-east-1b	available	2014-08-14T17:15:06+0000	standard
VOLUME	vol-a82f10e8	100	snap-9dee24ca	us-east-1b	available	2014-08-14T17:15:06+0000	standard

These are available and unused EBS volumes which you should consider deleting.