To create a snapshot

This example command creates a snapshot of the volume with a volume ID of vol-1234abcd and a short description to identify the snapshot.

Command:

aws ec2 create-snapshot --volume-id vol-1234abcd --description "This is my root volume snapshot."

Output:

{
    "Description": "This is my root volume snapshot.",
    "Tags": [],
    "VolumeId": "vol-1234abcd",
    "State": "pending",
    "VolumeSize": 8,
    "StartTime": "2014-02-28T21:06:01.000Z",
    "OwnerId": "012345678910",
    "SnapshotId": "snap-1a2b3c4d"
}