Did your web service go down because the 10GB amazon gives you on a new instance has been depleted ? Here is a quick fix to solving that problem.

First, you can use the df command to take inspect the current volumes and space allocations:

ubuntu@vr-prod-task1:/srv/www/ventus$ sudo df --si
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev            2.1G   13k  2.1G   1% /dev
tmpfs           415M  390k  415M   1% /run
/dev/xvda1       11G  5.4G  4.6G  54% /
none            4.1k     0  4.1k   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
none            5.3M     0  5.3M   0% /run/lock
none            2.1G  4.1k  2.1G   1% /run/shm
none            105M     0  105M   0% /run/user

Next, use fdisk to find which volumes are currently attached where they are attached:

ubuntu@vr-prod-task1:/srv/www/ventus$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/xvda: 10.7 GB, 10737418240 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1305 cylinders, total 20971520 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/xvda1   *       16065    20964824    10474380   83  Linux

To create a new volume, log in to ec2 and look at which AZ your instance is in. Next go to the volume section and create a new volume, picking the parameters of your choosing, and once EC2 has created that volumne, attach it do your instance.

Now run fdisk again and you should see your new volume:

ubuntu@vr-prod-task1:/srv/www/ventus$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/xvda: 10.7 GB, 10737418240 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1305 cylinders, total 20971520 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/xvda1   *       16065    20964824    10474380   83  Linux

Disk /dev/xvdf: 107.4 GB, 107374182400 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 13054 cylinders, total 209715200 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/xvdf doesn't contain a valid partition table

In this example, I attached /dev/xvdf to the instance, it was 100GB.

Next, reformat the volume:

sudo mkfs -t ext4 /dev/xvdf

Decide where you want it to live on disk and create that directory (I choose /vol1 in this example):

mkdir /vol1

Mount it

sudo mount /dev/xvdf /vol1

Finally, update (sudo vim /etc/fstab) the fstab file with the following line:

dev/xvdf       /vol1   auto    defaults,nobootwait     0       0

Reboot and your done!

ubuntu@vr-prod-task1:/srv/www/ventus$ df --si
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev            2.1G   13k  2.1G   1% /dev
tmpfs           415M  390k  415M   1% /run
/dev/xvda1       11G  5.4G  4.6G  54% /
none            4.1k     0  4.1k   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
none            5.3M     0  5.3M   0% /run/lock
none            2.1G  4.1k  2.1G   1% /run/shm
none            105M     0  105M   0% /run/user
/dev/xvdf       106G  4.8G   96G   5% /vol1