Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling now supports root volume replacement through instance refresh

Today, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling announced a new strategy, ReplaceRootVolume, within instance refresh. This feature allows customers to update the root volume of an EC2 instance without stopping or terminating the instance, while preserving other associated instance resources. The capability reduces operational complexity, simplifies software patching, and streamlines recovery from corrupted root volumes.

Customers use instance refresh to update the instances in their Auto Scaling groups (ASGs). This feature can be useful when customers want to migrate their instances to new instance types to take advantage of the latest improvements and optimizations. Traditionally, this process involved terminating older instances and launching new ones in a controlled manner. The new ReplaceRootVolume strategy transforms how customers manage instance lifecycles and software updates in their ASGs by enabling EC2 Auto Scaling service to replace the root Amazon EBS volume for running instances without stopping them. Organizations can now implement OS-level updates and security patches more efficiently without worrying about capacity management. This is especially valuable for workloads that use specialized instance types like Mac or GPU instances. Customers with stateful applications can now refresh their fleets with more confidence that their instances data, metadata, and attachments (such as network interfaces and elastic IPs) will be preserved with the new ReplaceRootVolume strategy.

This feature is now available in US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Europe (Ireland), and Asia Pacific (Singapore), at no additional cost beyond standard EC2 and EBS usage. To get started, refer to our technical documentation.