How can I mount the SSD drive on Amazon's m3.medium?

Amazon's m3.medium instance comes with a 4GB SSD Drive:

But I can't seem to find the device using df:

$ df -h

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/xvda1       20G  2.9G   16G  16% /
none            4.0K     0  4.0K   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
udev            1.9G  8.0K  1.9G   1% /dev
tmpfs           375M  228K  375M   1% /run
none            5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
none            1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /run/shm
none            100M     0  100M   0% /run/user

Or at /dev:

$ ls /dev
autofs           hvc0   i2c-5  loop7               ram0   ram7      tty1   tty21  tty33  tty45  tty57      ttyS1   ttyS21  ttyS5    vcs6         zero
block            hvc1   i2c-6  loop-control        ram1   ram8      tty10  tty22  tty34  tty46  tty58      ttyS10  ttyS22  ttyS6    vcs7
btrfs-control    hvc2   i2c-7  mapper              ram10  ram9      tty11  tty23  tty35  tty47  tty59      ttyS11  ttyS23  ttyS7    vcsa
char             hvc3   input  mem                 ram11  random    tty12  tty24  tty36  tty48  tty6       ttyS12  ttyS24  ttyS8    vcsa1
console          hvc4   kmsg   net                 ram12  rfkill    tty13  tty25  tty37  tty49  tty60      ttyS13  ttyS25  ttyS9    vcsa2
core             hvc5   log    network_latency     ram13  shm       tty14  tty26  tty38  tty5   tty61      ttyS14  ttyS26  uinput   vcsa3
cpu              hvc6   loop0  network_throughput  ram14  snapshot  tty15  tty27  tty39  tty50  tty62      ttyS15  ttyS27  urandom  vcsa4
cpu_dma_latency  hvc7   loop1  null                ram15  snd       tty16  tty28  tty4   tty51  tty63      ttyS16  ttyS28  vcs      vcsa5
disk             i2c-0  loop2  port                ram2   stderr    tty17  tty29  tty40  tty52  tty7       ttyS17  ttyS29  vcs1     vcsa6
ecryptfs         i2c-1  loop3  ppp                 ram3   stdin     tty18  tty3   tty41  tty53  tty8       ttyS18  ttyS3   vcs2     vcsa7
fd               i2c-2  loop4  psaux               ram4   stdout    tty19  tty30  tty42  tty54  tty9       ttyS19  ttyS30  vcs3     vga_arbiter
full             i2c-3  loop5  ptmx                ram5   tty       tty2   tty31  tty43  tty55  ttyprintk  ttyS2   ttyS31  vcs4     xen
fuse             i2c-4  loop6  pts                 ram6   tty0      tty20  tty32  tty44  tty56  ttyS0      ttyS20  ttyS4   vcs5     xvda1

The small print (with a *) suggests that I should have inserted some sort of parameter during launch:

*6 Instance storage for M3 instances will be provided when these block device mappings are specified in the instance launch parameters.

Do I have to re-launch the instance to gain access to the SSD drive? Which parameters are required during launch?

Solution 1:

You have to re-launch the instance. During launch in step 4 (adding storage), add an "Instance Store 0" to your instance. This will allocate the SSD for you. Note that this temporary storage and is lost if you terminate the instance!