Amazon Elastic Block Store
Amazon Elastic Block Store
Amazon EBS Direct API provides low-level access to EBS snapshot contents — read blocks, compute incremental diffs, build custom backup/restore tools.
Bypass attach-restore overhead — read blocks directly
Per-block API pricing — high cost for bulk reads
ListSnapshotBlocks to list all blocks of a snapshot; GetSnapshotBlock to fetch specific block data.
Uptime · 30-day window
GitHub activity
About this API
EBS Direct API is a low-level API for tool developers who need direct read/write access to EBS snapshot contents. Typical users interact with EBS snapshots via high-level operations like CreateSnapshot/CreateVolumeFromSnapshot. But some scenarios need lower-level access: third-party backup products (Veeam, Commvault) reading blocks directly from snapshots for their own backup formats; incremental backup needing to know which blocks changed between two snapshots (ListChangedBlocks); migration tools writing on-prem data to an EBS snapshot. In these scenarios, attach-snapshot-to-EC2-then-dd is too slow; EBS Direct API provides direct API operations. Typical developers don't need this; professional backup/migration tools use it heavily.
What you can build
- 1Third-party backup tools reading EBS snapshots
- 2Incremental backup (only changed blocks)
- 3Export EBS snapshot contents to on-prem
- 4Cross-cloud snapshot migration
Strengths & limitations
Strengths
- Bypass attach-restore overhead — read blocks directly
- ListChangedBlocks for efficient incremental computation
- Can write external data back to snapshots (PutSnapshotBlock)
Limitations
- Per-block API pricing — high cost for bulk reads
- Low-level interface, not for typical users
Getting started
ListSnapshotBlocks to list all blocks of a snapshot; GetSnapshotBlock to fetch specific block data.
FAQ
When would a typical user need this API?+
Almost never. It's a low-level API specifically for backup/migration tool developers.
Technical details
- Auth type
- unknown
- Pricing
- unknown
- Protocols
- REST
- SDKs
- python, javascript, go, java, csharp
- Response time
- 16 ms
- Last health check
- 6/25/2026, 6:21:34 AM
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