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Windows server AMI taking more than expected disk storage during fresh EC2 creation

0
  • ami-05162de38ecad30c1
  • ami-09b78c79d505dc3f0

I am using the above public windows server 2022 AMIs to spin up my EC2 instances.

I rely on using the AMIs default storage value for volume which is 30GB.

I observe that when we spin up a new EC2 instance using above AMIs, the disk storage would spike up to ~94% of the available storage. This would remain consistent for ~8 days and then gradually come down to 75-80% usage on the 9th day and continue to range around 80% thereafter.

This hasn't been the case before when I spun up instances before which would take and be consistent around 75-80% of disk usage throughout EC2's lifecycle

To temporarily resolve this, we had to use an older version of the AMI (ami-0d825a124481985ae) which doesn't have the above mentioned issue.

This isn't allowing us to be on the latest AMI in the market right now.

Topics
Compute
Tags
Amazon EC2Amazon Machine Images (AMI)Windows
Language
English
asked 9 months ago186 views
2 Answers
1

As a Windows administrator, 30GB is extremely small and I personally wouldnt spin a windows server up without les than 80GB. Windows updates and the paging file can cause diskspace usage to increase straight after deploying a server.

Be aware that 32 GB should be considered an absolute minimum value for successful installation. This minimum should allow you to install Windows Server 2022 or later using the Server Core installation option with the Web Services (IIS) server role. A server in Server Core mode is ~4 GB smaller than the same server using the Server with Desktop Experience installation option.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/hardware-requirements?tabs=storage&pivots=windows-server-2025

EXPERT
answered 9 months ago
  • Prajwal
    9 months ago

    Does that mean we shouldn't rely on disk space specified by the AMIs ?

  • Gary EXPERT
    9 months ago

    These are just AMIs. These are machine images and the disk that comes with them is the absolute minimum to build and launch the image. For each machine you launch you should always build the virtual machine to your requirements. If your happy with 30GB thats fine, but you will become stuck very quickly.

0

AWS provides an AMI with a small size so that you can decide how large your instance root volume will be. For example, if the AMI were preset to 100GB, you would not be able to make it any smaller.

AWS
answered 5 months ago

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