Hands-on Guide: How to Find and Remove Orphaned EBS Snapshots

This guide provides a comprehensive look at managing Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) snapshots to optimize storage costs on AWS. EBS snapshots are incremental backups stored in Amazon S3, allowing for data restoration or volume creation but potentially leading to increased storage expenses if not managed properly. The guide emphasizes the importance of identifying and deleting or archiving old or unused snapshots, known as orphaned snapshots, which can accrue unnecessary costs. It outlines how to use tools like AWS Cost Explorer, AWS CLI, and Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM) for automating snapshot management, and Stream.Security for detecting outdated snapshots via custom rules. The article highlights cost considerations, such as the impact of data transfer when copying snapshots between regions and the nuances of incremental storage costs, advising users to be cautious when deleting snapshots to avoid unintended data loss or cost implications. Moreover, it suggests tagging snapshots for easier management and cost-tracking, and recommends archiving for long-term storage of infrequently accessed data.