EBS (Elastic Block Storage) and EFS (Elastic File Storage) are two types of storage offered by Amazon. In this post, I present a summary of the differences in a table followed by more in-depth comparison.
| Feature | Amazon EBS | Amazon EFS |
|---|---|---|
| Type of storage | Block storage | File storage |
| Use case | Databases, Boot volumes, Application hosting, Data warehousing | Web serving, Content Management, Media processing, Big Data Analytics, Development and Testing |
| Data transfer rate | High performance, suitable for I/O intensive workloads | Shared infrastructure, suitable for low-to-moderate throughput workloads |
| Access | Single EC2 instance | Multiple EC2 instances |
| Scalability | Vertical scalability, increase storage volume size as needed | Horizontal scalability, expand file system size as needed |
| Data durability | High data durability | High data durability |
| Availability | High availability, use multiple EBS volumes for redundancy | High availability, multiple availability zones |
| Performance | IOPS and throughput can be optimized for specific workloads | Variable performance, dependent on network latency and file size |
| Cost | Lower cost per GB than EFS | Higher cost per GB than EBS |
| Backups | Point-in-time backups with EBS snapshots | Automatic backups with EFS lifecycle management |
Here is a comprehensive comparison between Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) and Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS):
- Purpose:
- EFS: A scalable network file system for sharing files across multiple Amazon EC2 instances.
- EBS: A block storage system for use with Amazon EC2 instances that require persistent storage.
- Performance:
- EFS: Designed for higher latency, higher throughput workloads with frequent access to files.
- EBS: Designed for low-latency, low-throughput workloads with infrequent access to files.
- Scalability:
- EFS: Scales automatically as more file systems are created and automatically adjusts performance based on the amount of data stored.
- EBS: Can scale up to 16 TiB per volume and 64,000 IOPS per instance.
- Availability:
- EFS: Provides high availability and durability by storing file system data across multiple availability zones.
- EBS: Provides high availability by replicating data within the same availability zone and offers a snapshot feature for data backup.
- Cost:
- EFS: Billed based on the amount of data stored in the file system, number of requests, and data transfer.
- EBS: Billed based on the provisioned storage capacity and IOPS.
- Use cases:
- EFS: Suitable for workloads that require shared access to files, such as web content management, media processing, and data analytics.
- EBS: Suitable for databases, enterprise applications, and other workloads that require block-level storage.
- Integration with AWS services:
- EFS: Integrates with various AWS services, including Amazon EC2, Amazon ECS, AWS Lambda, and AWS CloudFormation.
- EBS: Integrates with Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS, and Amazon Redshift.
EFS is more suitable for workloads that require shared access to files across multiple instances and higher throughput, while EBS is more suitable for workloads that require block-level storage and low latency. EFS is more expensive than EBS, but offers higher availability and scalability. It’s important to consider the specific needs of your workload when choosing between EFS and EBS.