EBS volumes frequently remain detached after EC2 instances are terminated, replaced, or reconfigured. Some may be intentionally retained for reattachment or backup purposes, but many persist unintentionally due to the lack of automated cleanup. When these detached volumes are also inactive—showing no read or write activity—they represent unnecessary ongoing costs. Identifying and removing these orphaned volumes can produce meaningful savings without affecting running workloads.

S3 Standard is the default storage class and is often used by default even for data that is rarely accessed. Keeping large volumes of infrequently accessed data in S3 Standard leads to unnecessary costs. Data such as backups, logs, archives, or historical snapshots are often strong candidates for migration to colder tiers like S3 Glacier or Deep Archive. If access patterns are unknown or variable, S3 Intelligent-Tiering can reduce costs without requiring manual transitions.