How to determine the root device type of an EC2 server by Raj Gupta

We can determine the root device type (EBS-backed or instance store-backed) of an EC2 server by below two way:-

1.  By using the console:-

Open the Amazon EC2 console --> Select the instance -->  Description tab --> Check the value of Root device type

• If the value is ebs, this is an Amazon EBS-backed instance.
• If the value is instance store, this is an instance store-backed instance.

From the below example you can easily find that my sever root volume type is ebs

2.  By using the AWS CLI:-

AWS CLI tool must be install already in your system to run the below command.

Run the below command in your EC2 server

[root@ip-172-31-94-201 ~]# aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids i-0b548c810ecf24b02

then you will get output like below

                    "Architecture": "x86_64",

                    "RootDeviceType": "ebs",

                    "RootDeviceName": "/dev/xvda",

                    "VirtualizationType": "hvm",

                    "Tags": [

                        {

                            "Value": "Production",

                            "Key": "Name"

                        }