Answers: <p>When creating an AMI, you are making a copy of your EBS volumes. This utilizes block storage and will only need to process the diffs of your EBS snapshots. If you changed a lot of data in your EBS or don't have a previous snapshot, it will take longer to create your AMI.</p>
  
  <p>Here is a quote from the documentation at <a href="https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/WindowsGuide/Creating_EBSbacked_WinAMI.html" rel="noreferrer">https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/WindowsGuide/Creating_EBSbacked_WinAMI.html</a></p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Depending on the size of the volumes, it can take several minutes for
    the AMI-creation process to complete (sometimes up to 24 hours). You
    may find it more efficient to create snapshots of your volumes prior
    to creating your AMI. This way, only small, incremental snapshots need
    to be created when the AMI is created, and the process completes more
    quickly (the total time for snapshot creation remains the same).</p>
  </blockquote>
  
Answers: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers: 2019-09-30T17:21:05.680Z
Answers: 2019-09-30T17:21:05.680Z
Answers: Aliminator
Body: <p>Creation date: <code>September 23, 2019 at 9:22:06 PM UTC+2</code></p>
  
  <p><code>21:48</code>: still waiting for completion</p>
  
  <p><code>21:53</code>: completed</p>
  
  <p>Sometimes it takes 15 minutes and sometimes longer. How does a creation of an AMI work and why is the creation time unpredictable?</p>
  
Comments: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments: 2019-09-24T02:09:48.877Z
Comments: Are you creating the AMI from the same type of EC2 instance?  If so what type of instance is it (e.g. t2, m4 large, etc)?
Comments: Wesley Rolnick
Tags: <amazon-web-services><amazon-ec2><amazon-ami>
Title: How does the creation of an AMI on AWS work and why is the creation time unpredictable?
UserDisplayName: 030
ThreadText: # How does the creation of an AMI on AWS work and why is the creation time unpredictable?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2019-09-23)
  
  Creation date: `September 23, 2019 at 9:22:06 PM UTC+2`
  
  `21:48`: still waiting for completion
  
  `21:53`: completed
  
  Sometimes it takes 15 minutes and sometimes longer. How does a creation of an AMI work and why is the creation time unpredictable?
  
  **Tags:** amazon-web-services, amazon-ec2, amazon-ami
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: Are you creating the AMI from the same type of EC2 instance?  If so what type of instance is it (e.g. t2, m4 large, etc)?  
  
  ---
  
  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_2 on 2019-09-30. Score: 7 | Accepted answer
  
  When creating an AMI, you are making a copy of your EBS volumes. This utilizes block storage and will only need to process the diffs of your EBS snapshots. If you changed a lot of data in your EBS or don't have a previous snapshot, it will take longer to create your AMI.
  
  Here is a quote from the documentation at <https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/WindowsGuide/Creating_EBSbacked_WinAMI.html>
  
  > Depending on the size of the volumes, it can take several minutes for
  > the AMI-creation process to complete (sometimes up to 24 hours). You
  > may find it more efficient to create snapshots of your volumes prior
  > to creating your AMI. This way, only small, incremental snapshots need
  > to be created when the AMI is created, and the process completes more
  > quickly (the total time for snapshot creation remains the same).
  
  
  ---
  
  