Amazon Web Services (AWS) is well-known for its vast number of product offerings. There are (probably) a few AWS ninjas who know exactly how and when to use which Amazon product for what because they've earned this certification. The rest of us are in need of help.
Specifically in the storage arena, AWS provides three popular services — S3, Elastic Block Store (EBS), and Elastic File System (EFS) — which work quite differently and offer different levels of performance, cost, availability, and scalability. We'll discuss the use cases of these storage options, and compare their performance, cost, and accessibility to stored data. But before diving in, you can also try out this free AWS storage skills assessment to see how your "IQ" stacks up against your peers.
AWS Storage Options: A Primer
Amazon S3provides simple object storage, useful for hosting website images and videos, data analytics, and both mobile and web applications. Object storage manages data as objects, meaning all data types are stored in their native formats. There is no hierarchy of relations between files with object storage — data objects can be distributed across several machines. You can access the S3 service from anywhere on the internet. Learn more about Amazon S3 common operations on objects and buckets.
AWS EBSprovides persistent block-level data storage. Block storage stores files in multiple volumes called blocks, which act as separate hard drives; block storage devices are more flexible and offer higher performance than regular file storage. You need to mount EBS onto an Amazon EC2 instance. Use cases include business continuity, software testing, and database management. Learn more about EBS volume types and common operations.
AWS EFSis a shared, elastic file storage system that grows and shrinks as you add and remove files. It offers a traditional file storage paradigm, with data organized into directories and subdirectories. EFS is useful for SaaS applications and content management systems. You can mount EFS onto several EC2 instances at the same time. Learn how to create an EFS file system and mount it on an EC2 instance.
The following diagram illustrates the difference between object storage and block storage.
Image Source: NetApp Cloud (used with permission)
Head to Head
The table below compares Amazon S3, EBS, and EFS in terms of performance, cost, availability, accessibility, access control, and storage or file size limits enforced by each service.
Which AWS Cloud Storage Service Is Best?
As always, it depends.
Amazon S3 is cheapest for data storage alone. However, there are various other pricing parameters in S3, including cost per number of requests made, S3 Analytics, and data transfer out of S3 per gigabyte. EFS has the simplest cost structure.
Amazon S3 can be accessed from anywhere. AWS EBS is only available in a particular region, while you can share files between regions on multiple EFS instances.
EBS and EFS are both faster than Amazon S3, with high IOPS and lower latency.
EBS is scalable up or down with a single API call. Since EBS is cheaper than EFS, you can use it for database backups and other low-latency interactive applications that require consistent, predictable performance.
EFS is best used for large quantities of data, such as large analytic workloads. Data at this scale cannot be stored on a single EC2 instance allowed in EBS—requiring users to break up data and distribute it between EBS instances. The EFS service allows concurrent access to thousands of EC2 instances, making it possible to process and analyze large amounts of data seamlessly.
Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.
FAQs
Interface: S3 provides you with a web interface while EBS provides a file system interface and EFS provides a web and file system interface. Storage Type: AWS S3 is object storage while Amazon EBS is block storage and Amazon EFS is file storage.
What are the 3 types of storage in AWS? ›
There are three main cloud storage types: object storage, file storage, and block storage. Each offers its own advantages and has its own use cases.
How are S3 and EBS different from each other? ›
Amazon S3 provides durability by redundantly storing the data across multiple Availability Zones whereas EBS provides durability by redundantly storing the data in a single Availability Zone.
What is the difference between S3 and storage? ›
Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) is a fully managed object storage service offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It allows you to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. Now an S3 storage class refers to the different types of storage options that are available within S3.
Why use EFS instead of EBS? ›
EFS volumes can scale up quickly and automatically to meet abrupt spikes in workload demand and scale down with a decreased load. This makes EFS more flexible and better at handling dynamic workloads than EBS.
What is the difference between AWS EFS and AWS EBS? ›
Both EBS and EFS are secure storage options. EBS uses AWS' built-in security features. EFS enables integration with third-party security and identity and access management. They encrypt data in transit and at rest, which helps customers meet industry and internal compliance guidelines.
What are the 3 tiers of storage? ›
What Are the Tiered Storage Types?
| Tier | Description |
|---|
| Tier 0 | This storage tier stores highly volatile data that are time-sensitive. Tier 0 is appropriate for high-performance workloads. |
| Tier 1 | Tier 1 is appropriate for mission-critical data. |
| Tier 2/3 | This tier stores backup for mission-critical and business-critical data. |
2 more rowsJan 26, 2022
The most prevalent forms of data storage are file storage, block storage, and object storage, with each being ideal for different purposes.
What are the 3 storage interface options for AWS Storage Gateway? ›
Standard Storage Protocols: Storage Gateway seamlessly connects to your local production or backup applications with NFS, SMB, iSCSI, or iSCSI-VTL, so you can adopt AWS Cloud storage without needing to modify your applications.
Is S3 better than EBS? ›
This means that S3 is best suited for storing large amounts of unstructured data, such as text or binary files, while EBS is better for storing structured data that requires low-latency access, such as databases or filesystems.
Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) is an easy-to-use, scalable, high-performance block-storage service designed for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2).
Can we move data from EBS to S3? ›
Upon the creation of an EBS snapshot, the data stored within the EBS volume(s) is automatically transferred to an Amazon S3 bucket for long-term storage purposes. This provides an easy-to-use, cost-efficient storage option for EBS backup data.
Is S3 a database or storage? ›
S3 provides tools for uploading large objects in parts and migrating big data into storage. AWS S3 is a key-value store, one of the major categories of NoSQL databases used for accumulating voluminous, mutating, unstructured, or semistructured data.
Which is faster storage EBS or S3? ›
EBS and EFS are both faster than Amazon S3, with high IOPS and lower latency. EBS is scalable up or down with a single API call.
What is Blob Storage vs S3? ›
Azure Blob Storage supports a maximum capacity of 100 PB per storage account and a maximum file size of 4.77 TB. This makes it well-suited for large-scale data storage and analytics. Amazon S3, on the other hand, supports a maximum capacity of 100 PB per bucket and a maximum file size of 5 TB.
How does storage in an AWS S3 bucket differ from storage in an EBS volume? ›
Purpose: S3 is an object storage service, while EBS is a block storage service. This means that S3 is best suited for storing large amounts of unstructured data, such as text or binary files, while EBS is better for storing structured data that requires low-latency access, such as databases or filesystems.
What is the difference between EBS EFS and instance store? ›
The EBS provides persistent block storage volumes for use with Amazon EC2 instances. EFS is used for network storage and the instance store provides temporary block-level storage for your instance.
What are the two major types of storage drives for EBS volumes? ›
These volume types are divided into two major categories: SSD-backed storage for transactional workloads, such as databases, virtual desktops and boot volumes, and HDD-backed storage for throughput intensive workloads, such as MapReduce and log processing.
Which is faster EBS or EFS? ›
For performance, Amazon EBS is the fastest due to high IOPS, but when it comes to shared and scalable file systems Amazon EFS is the best option.
