What is the difference between EBS snapshots AMI

Question

As I understand it, a snapshot is simply a backup of the disk drive, whereas the AMI is a backup of the entire system (or instance I should say), but isn't the entire system technically wholly located on the disk drive? and if that's the case then there is no clear difference. 

So how exactly are they different?

Answer 1

The major difference is between the type of service referred to. A snapshot is of an EBS volume where you are able to save state and reboot with the same data at a certain point in time.

An AMI is similar, but it's for the EC2 instances themselves. You cannot take a snapshot of a non-ebs backed instance, but you can create an AMI (system image) of one. Mostly, you can use EBS snapshots as backup solutions for a database volume and an AMI to save instance configuration.

Learn more about the difference between ami and snapshot here.