Underutilized EBS Volumes

Opportunity Name:

Underutilized EBS Volumes

AWS Resource Type:

Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS)

Opportunity Description:

The Finder identifies EBS volumes that are provisioned but show minimal or no usage activity over an extended period. These underutilized volumes contribute to unnecessary storage costs and can be targeted for manual rightsizing or deletion.

Criteria for Identifying the Opportunity:

An opportunity is identified when:

• The EBS volume shows consistently low read/write activity.
• The volume has been provisioned at a size significantly higher than required by its actual usage.
• The volume is not actively used by attached instances or applications.

Potential Savings (range in % on annual basis):

Savings depend on the volume size and number of identified underutilized volumes. Typical opportunities can result in substantial cost reduction by either downsizing or removing unused volumes.

What happens when the Fixer is executed?

There is no automated Fixer for this opportunity. Any action (e.g., resizing or deletion) must be executed manually by the customer or their internal teams. Note that resizing a volume to a smaller size is not natively supported by AWS — it requires creating a new smaller volume, migrating data, attaching the new volume to the instance, and decommissioning the original.

Is it possible to roll back once CloudFix implements the Fixer?

Not applicable – as this is a manual action only. Rollback would depend on the actions taken by the user, and may require restoring from a snapshot or reverting instance configurations.

Can CloudFix implement the fix automatically once I accept the recommendation?

No – this is a manual opportunity. CloudFix identifies underutilized volumes but does not modify or delete them automatically.

Does this fix require downtime?

Yes – if the user proceeds with data migration to a newly created smaller volume or deletes an attached volume, application downtime may occur during detachment and reattachment processes.