AWS offers various storage services to meet different needs. Some applications need "hard drives" (EBS), others need to store files (S3), and some need shared network storage (EFS). AWS storage services provide solutions for all of these needs, and they do so with high availability, durability, and security, managed by AWS.
AWS Storage Services
Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store):
- Purpose: EBS provides block-level storage volumes that you can attach to EC2 instances. Think of it like a hard drive for your virtual server in the cloud. It's designed for workloads that require persistent, durable storage, such as databases, operating systems, and applications that need direct access to block storage.
- Key Characteristics:
- Persistent storage: Data remains even after the EC2 instance is stopped or terminated.
- High performance: Offers different volume types with varying IOPS (input/output operations per second) and throughput.
- Attached to a single EC2 instance at a time (usually).
- Use Cases:
- Running relational and NoSQL databases.
- Hosting file systems for applications.
- Storing data for business applications requiring frequent updates.
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service):
- Purpose: S3 provides object storage for a wide variety of data. It’s designed for scalability, data availability, security, and performance. Objects (files and their metadata) are stored in "buckets."
- Key Characteristics:
- Object-based storage: Data is stored as objects, each with a unique key.
- Highly scalable: Store virtually unlimited amounts of data.
- Highly available and durable: Designed for 99.999999999% (11 9's) durability.
- Various storage classes: For cost optimization based on access
AWS Storage Services
- EBS (Elastic Block Storage): Block storage volumes that can be attached to EC2 instances. They are used for storing data that requires low latency and high performance, such as databases, file systems, and application data.
- S3 (Simple Storage Service): Object storage service that provides scalable and durable storage for any type of data. It is often used for storing images, videos, and other large files.
- EFS (Elastic File System): File system service that provides a shared file system that can be accessed from multiple EC2 instances. It is often used for storing data that is shared between multiple applications, such as project files and shared data.