Taming the EBS Snapshot Beast: How We Reclaimed 30TB and $2,400/Month

Our AWS bill was a horror show of untagged EBS snapshots. Here's how we fixed it.

It started subtly. A few extra dollars here, a slightly higher bill there. We chalked it up to growth, to new projects, to the usual fluctuations in cloud costs. Then came the budget review. "Thirty terabytes in EBS snapshots?" the CFO asked incredulously. "What on earth are we backing up? The entire internet?" The truth was, we didn't really know.

An abstract image representing a vast, disorganized collection of data, symbolizing EBS snapshot sprawl.

The EBS Snapshot Graveyard

Over 18 months, dozens of projects had spun up, iterated, and sometimes, quietly died. Each project, diligently following best practices (or so we thought), created EBS snapshots for their instances. The problem? Nobody was cleaning them up. We had a digital graveyard of orphaned snapshots, silently racking up charges.

Manual Cleanup: A Sisyphean Task

Our first instinct was to tackle the problem manually. We tasked a junior engineer with identifying and deleting the obsolete snapshots. A week later, he came back, bleary-eyed and defeated. He'd barely made a dent. The sheer volume of untagged snapshots was overwhelming. It was like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon.

A visual metaphor for the futility of manual cleanup efforts, perhaps depicting a single figure struggling against a tide of data.
An abstract representation of automated processes efficiently organizing and managing data, symbolizing EazyOps' solution.

EazyOps: Automation to the Rescue

That's when we turned to EazyOps. Within minutes of connecting our AWS account, EazyOps identified all our orphaned snapshots. It pinpointed the culprits, visualized the cost breakdown, and, most importantly, offered automated solutions. We implemented EazyOps' lifecycle policies to automatically expire and delete old snapshots based on customizable rules. It was like flipping a switch. The snapshot sprawl started receding immediately.

Reclaiming our Cloud Budget (and Sanity)

The results were stunning. We cut our EBS snapshot costs by 70%, reclaiming 30TB of storage and $2,400 per month. More than just cost savings, we gained peace of mind. We knew our snapshots were being managed intelligently, preventing future sprawl and ensuring we weren't paying for data we didn't need.

A visualization of cost savings and reclaimed resources, perhaps showing a graph with a sharply declining trend line.

Lessons Learned

  • Automation is key for managing EBS snapshots: Manual processes simply don't scale.
  • Visibility is paramount: You can't manage what you can't see. Understanding your snapshot usage patterns is the first step to optimization.
  • Lifecycle policies are your friend: Automate snapshot creation and deletion based on business needs.

What's Next: The Future of EBS Snapshot Management

The future of EBS snapshot management lies in greater integration with other cloud services and more sophisticated automation. Imagine snapshots being automatically tiered to cheaper storage based on age and frequency of access, or predictive models that anticipate your snapshot needs based on past usage.

About Shujat

Shujat is a Senior Backend Engineer at EazyOps, working at the intersection of performance engineering, cloud cost optimization, and AI infrastructure. He writes to share practical strategies for building efficient, intelligent systems.