When working with AWS EBS volumes, there are legitimate scenarios where you need direct filesystem-level access to the raw storage content without using S3 as an intermediary. Common use cases include:

• Forensic analysis of disk contents
• Creating local development replicas of production environments
• Migrating data to non-AWS infrastructure while preserving filesystem metadata

The AWS API doesn't provide a direct DownloadVolume endpoint. The official workflow involves:

1. Creating a snapshot
2. Converting snapshot to AMI
3. Exporting AMI to S3

This multi-step process often introduces unnecessary complexity when you simply need raw disk access.

Here's a reliable method using AWS CLI and standard Linux utilities:

# Create temporary EC2 instance with target volume attached
INSTANCE_ID=$(aws ec2 run-instances \
    --image-id ami-0abcdef1234567890 \
    --instance-type t3.large \
    --key-name MyKeyPair \
    --security-group-ids sg-12345678 \
    --subnet-id subnet-12345678 \
    --block-device-mappings "[{\"DeviceName\":\"/dev/xvdf\",\"Ebs\":{\"VolumeSize\":30,\"DeleteOnTermination\":true}}]" \
    --query 'Instances[0].InstanceId' \
    --output text)

# Wait for instance to initialize
aws ec2 wait instance-running --instance-ids $INSTANCE_ID

# Attach your EBS volume (or create from snapshot)
VOLUME_ID=$(aws ec2 create-volume \
    --availability-zone us-east-1a \
    --volume-type gp3 \
    --size 100 \
    --snapshot-id snap-1234567890abcdef0 \
    --query 'VolumeId' \
    --output text)

aws ec2 attach-volume \
    --volume-id $VOLUME_ID \
    --instance-id $INSTANCE_ID \
    --device /dev/sdg

# SSH into instance and dump volume
ssh -i MyKeyPair.pem ec2-user@$INSTANCE_IP "sudo dd if=/dev/xvdg bs=1M | gzip -c" > volume.img.gz

For more interactive access, consider using guestmount from libguestfs:

# Install required packages
sudo apt-get install libguestfs-tools

# Mount EBS snapshot directly
guestmount -a /dev/nvme1n1 -i /mnt/ebs_volume

# Work with files directly in /mnt/ebs_volume
cp -r /mnt/ebs_volume/home/user/data ./local_backup/

# Unmount when done
guestunmount /mnt/ebs_volume

When dealing with large volumes:

• Use pv to monitor transfer progress: dd if=/dev/xvdf | pv | gzip > volume.img.gz
• Consider network-optimized instance types (like c5n) for multi-TB volumes
• Compress during transfer to reduce bandwidth usage

Remember to:

• Revoke temporary IAM permissions after transfer
• Encrypt the downloaded image file
• Terminate temporary instances promptly
• Use VPC endpoints to avoid internet exposure

When working with AWS EBS volumes, there are legitimate scenarios where you might need to download the complete raw disk image:

• Forensic analysis of compromised instances
• Migrating workloads to on-premise environments
• Creating local testing environments identical to production
• Long-term archival beyond AWS's snapshot lifecycle

Amazon doesn't provide a direct "Download as image" button in the console. The native options are:

1. AWS CLI snapshot commands (create/copy/delete)
2. EC2 APIs for volume attachment
3. S3 for object storage (but not raw block devices)

Here's a proven method to create a raw disk image:

# Create temporary EC2 instance in same AZ as target volume
INSTANCE_ID=$(aws ec2 run-instances \
    --image-id ami-0abcdef1234567890 \
    --instance-type t3.large \
    --key-name my-key-pair \
    --security-group-ids sg-903004f8 \
    --subnet-id subnet-6e7f829e \
    --block-device-mappings '[{"DeviceName":"/dev/sdf","Ebs":{"VolumeSize":30}}]' \
    --query 'Instances[0].InstanceId' \
    --output text)

# Attach target volume (replace VOL_ID with your EBS volume ID)
aws ec2 attach-volume \
    --volume-id vol-1234567890abcdef0 \
    --instance-id $INSTANCE_ID \
    --device /dev/sdg

# SSH into instance and create raw image
ssh -i my-key-pair.pem ec2-user@$INSTANCE_IP <

# For Linux systems
sudo losetup -fP ebs_image.img
sudo mount /dev/loop0p1 /mnt/ebs

# For Windows (using OSFMount)
OSFMount.com -a -t file -f ebs_image.img -m # -p 0

import boto3
ec2 = boto3.resource('ec2')

def download_volume(volume_id, output_file):
    instance = ec2.create_instances(
        ImageId='ami-0abcdef1234567890',
        InstanceType='t3.large',
        MinCount=1,
        MaxCount=1
    )[0]
    
    instance.wait_until_running()
    ec2.Instance(instance.id).attach_volume(
        VolumeId=volume_id,
        Device='/dev/sdg'
    )
    
    # Actual download logic would use paramiko for SSH
    # ... implementation omitted for brevity
    
    instance.terminate()

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ec2:AttachVolume",
                "ec2:DescribeVolumes"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        }
    ]
}

sha256sum ebs_image.img
aws ec2 describe-snapshots --snapshot-id snap-12345 --query 'Snapshots[0].Tags[?Key==Checksum].Value'