Resize an EC2 EBS volume and extend XFS without data loss

Resize the EBS volume in the AWS Console

1. Go to EC2 Console → Volumes
2. Select the volume → Actions → Modify Volume
3. Enter the new size (you can only increase, not shrink)
4. Confirm and wait for the state to change to optimizing

Volume resize does not require rebooting the EC2 instance on Nitro-based instances (most instance types from 2018 onward: t3, m5, c5, r5, etc.).

Verify after resize

SSH into the EC2 instance:

lsblk
# Output:
# NAME     MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
# nvme0n1  259:0    0  100G  0 disk
# └─nvme0n1p1 259:1  0   50G  0 part /
# (disk is 100G but partition is still 50G)

df -h
# Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
# /dev/nvme0n1p1   50G   30G   20G  60% /

Extend the partition

# Use growpart to expand the partition
sudo growpart /dev/nvme0n1 1

# Verify
lsblk
# nvme0n1p1 is now 100G

Grow the XFS filesystem

# XFS uses xfs_growfs (not resize2fs like ext4)
sudo xfs_growfs /

# Output:
# meta-data=/dev/nvme0n1p1  isize=512    agcount=4, agsize=3276800 blks
# ...
# data blocks changed from 13107200 to 26214400

Note: xfs_growfs takes the mount point path, not the device path. Use / if mounted at root.

Verify the result

df -h /
# Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
# /dev/nvme0n1p1  100G   30G   70G  30% /

Filesystem expanded successfully — no downtime, no data loss.

For ext4

If your filesystem is ext4 instead of XFS:

sudo resize2fs /dev/nvme0n1p1