How can I share an EBS drive across multiple EC2 instances effectively?

What if you store your files in an S3 bucket? It could be another way to access your files without the need for cloning them to the EC2 instances each time.

Just keep an EBS volume that's separate. Start an EC2 instance, attach the volume, perform your tasks, then detach it. You can repeat this each time you bring up a new instance. It's a straightforward rinse-and-repeat process!

Have you explored using Amazon FSx? It sounds like you're looking for a way to avoid copying your code to each instance, which would require a shared file system. You can either set up your own solution or use one of AWS's shared file system options. That might simplify your setup!

You could create an EBS snapshot and then instantiate or attach it when launching new instances. This could streamline your workflow and help avoid unnecessary cloning!

Consider trying to clone your repository with a depth of 1. It's usually not very time-intensive or resource-heavy for CI/CD processes, and it could save you some time when building your projects!

You could consider setting up GlusterFS on some EBS volumes attached to a budget-friendly server. That method worked for me in my builds before, but these days, EFS tends to be cheaper to work with, and the IOPS weren't as much of an issue as I had anticipated. You might want to give it a thought!