AWS Storage EBS vs S3 vs EFS Explained
We find that many aspiring cloud architects struggle to find the difference between S3 versus EBS versus EFS?
In this post we will help you develop an understanding of the storage options on AWS.
Let’s begin with EBS or Elastic Block Storage? EBS is high performance, non-volatile storage. This means it doesn’t go away upon instance termination or reboot. This is very different than instance storage that comes with your virtual machines. Instance storage gets deleted upon instance termination. Realistically speaking, if you have any data that you want to store it needs to be on something other than instance storage and EBS is a very good option.
EBS volumes are mounted and they’re used directly by the host, just like a virtual hard drive. EBS volumes are relatively high-performance and there’s multiple options, which we’ll talk about later, but these are virtual disks. These EBS volumes are located on high performance RAID arrays, so they can give you some really good performance along with some high availability and high redundancy.
EBS volumes are block storage. Block storage is a type of storage that places data in blocks, and then stores those blocks in separate pieces. Each block has an identifier and based upon the identifier the data is reconstituted when needed. Block storage can be really high performance as blocks can be placed wherever it’s most efficient on the storage array.
EBS volumes are flexible and support both Windows and Linux systems. One of the primary reasons EBS volumes are used is you can store data on an EBS volume which is not deleted upon instance termination. Prior to discussing the EBS options its necessary to discuss disk performance metrics. Input and Output Operations per second (IOPS) relates to disk access speed. The higher the IOPS the lower the latency. Throughput refers to the speed of data transfers and is measured in MB/Second. There are four versions of EBS volumes which can be seen below:
Previsioned Input and Output Per Second (PIOPS)
- Highest performance option on the AWS cloud
- Guaranteed disk access speeds in terms of IOPS
- Very low latency
- Great throughput up to 1000MB/Second
- Ideal for databases
- Ideal for low latency applications
- Ideal when you need guaranteed disk performance
General Purpose SSD
- Medium performance option
- Moderate throughput
- Moderate latency
- Good balance of price to performance
- Excellent for boot volumes on EC2 instances
- Excellent for lab environments that need high performance but are looking to save on costs
Throughput Optimized EBS Volumes
- Magnetic storage
- High throughput
- High latency
- Good with sequential read and writes
- Cheaper than SSD volumes
- Great when moving a lot of data that is not latency sensitive
Cold HDD
- Magnetic storage
- Low-cost storage
- Low throughput
- High Latency
- Good for storing information that is rarely needed.
Now that you know the types of EBS volumes we will discuss S3.
What is Amazon Simple Storage (S3)? S3 is object storage on the AWS platform which is integrated into many AWS services. Object storage breaks files into pieces called objects. Each object has a unique ID, and based upon their IDs, they’re very easy to put back together.
Since S3 is object storage, it cannot house an operating system. Therefore EC2 (compute instances) are going to have to boot from instance storage or an EBS volume. S3 is high availability 99.99% and high durability 99.999999999% storage. What this means is you’re very likely to be able to access your data when you need it and it’s extremely unlikely to be lost.
Some Common S3 Use Cases
- Backups and Disaster Recovery
- Data Storage
- Content Distribution
- Static Website Hosting
- Data Lakes
Next up Elastic File System (EFS). So what is EFS? EFS is a high performance network file system. And that’s the key, it’s a network file system. When you have 10, 20, 100, 1000 computers that need to access the same data on a network EFS is what you use on the AWS cloud.
EFS volumes are high throughput, low latency and can be very high capacity. EFS volumes are elastic in that they increase size on demand. This means there is no concern of running out of storage space. Additionally, EFS volumes are POSIX compatible, which means they will interoperate with legacy systems.
To summarize EBS volumes are for host storage, S3 volumes are for overall storage, and EFS is used when you need network storage for computing systems.
If you enjoyed this content, please lets us know in the comments section below. Please forward to others who you believe would benefit from this information.
Get a FREE AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate eBook from Go Cloud Architects by clicking on the link below:
https://www.gocloudarchitects.com/free-csa-a-ebook/
Download a FREE AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional Practice Exam at the link below:
https://www.gocloudarchitects.com/free_exam/
We have new cloud computing videos every Wednesday on our YouTube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/c/GoCloudArchitects
Visit our website at www.gocloudarchitects.com
