Introducing Amazon EBS Volume Clones across AWS accounts

AWS now extends its EBS Volume Clone feature—originally limited to same‑account copies within a single Availability Zone—to support sharing volumes across accounts via AWS Resource Access Manager. The workflow requires the source account to grant RAM access, after which the destination account can invoke a “Copy volume” operation, choosing a new KMS customer‑managed key if re‑encryption is desired. Unencrypted volumes and those encrypted with a customer‑managed CMK are eligible; volumes using the default AWS‑managed key cannot be shared. The copy incurs a one‑time charge based on the volume’s size, billed to the receiving account, while the ongoing EBS storage fees apply as usual. No RAM fees apply, and the copy must reside in the same AZ as the source, identified by AZ IDs such as use1‑az1.

This move plugs a gap in AWS’s data‑movement toolbox. Prior to this, teams relied on snapshots or manual data export to replicate production data for testing, which added latency and operational overhead. By enabling instant, point‑in‑time clones across accounts, AWS streamlines the common “prod‑to‑dev” workflow, a pattern heavily used by enterprises that isolate development environments for security or compliance reasons. Competitors like Azure and Google Cloud already allow cross‑subscription or project disk copying, so the feature keeps AWS on par while leveraging its mature RAM sharing model. It also dovetails with the broader push toward immutable infrastructure, where rapid environment refreshes reduce configuration drift.

Looking ahead, the AZ‑bound restriction may limit the utility for multi‑region disaster‑recovery scenarios, pushing customers to pair this feature with cross‑region snapshot replication. Security teams will need to audit CMK sharing permissions carefully, as granting RAM access also opens a path to the underlying encryption keys. Monitoring via CloudTrail and EventBridge gives visibility, but organizations should integrate those events into their governance pipelines to detect unauthorized copy attempts. Finally, the pricing model—one‑off per‑GB copy fees—could become a cost factor for large‑scale data farms, prompting users to evaluate the trade‑off between speed and expense.