EBS vs EFS vs FSx vs S3: How These Storage Options Differ

AWS gives teams several storage services with very different behavior, cost profiles, and operational expectations. Use this guide to map each storage service to concrete workload needs such as latency targets, sharing requirements, and cost controls.

Business adoption of cloud storage continues to rise, with 30% of companies 🔗 now storing information online. AWS dominates the data storage market. Amazon S3 Standard holds a commanding 27% share of frequently accessed simple storage service.

However, AWS offers multiple data storage services, not just S3. Want to know more about AWS EFS vs S3? When to choose FSx over EFS?

EBS vs EFS vs FSx vs S3 often confuses new customers. What does each service offer? And which one is right for your business needs? What about EC2 instance store vs EBS?

This article helps explain the different AWS storage options.

Learn the differences between Elastic Block Store and Standard Storage Service. See how FSx compares to Elastic File System.

Read on to choose the correct storage option to future-proof your company. And how hiring the right AWS consultancy is critical to that success.

Amazon Web Services storage options

AWS offers a range of data storage services, including block storage, file storage, and object storage. Each employs a unique way to store information on the cloud.

For example, simple storage service or S3 tends to be a catch-all system for companies to store data in ‘buckets.’ Objects include metadata for easy reference and retrieval as needed.

On the other hand, block storage holds no metadata, which often gives the advantage of speed and stability for larger data sets. In comparison, file storage works with hierarchal information.

We’ll discuss these three types throughout the article, but what does AWS offer in terms of storage services?

AWS storage services

Amazon Web Services offers multiple data storage and transfer solutions 🔗 that support everything from backup and migration to analytics and high-performance workloads.

The four primary services that deal specifically with storing data are:

• Amazon Elastic Block Store
• Amazon Elastic File System
• Amazon FSx
• Amazon Simple Storage Service

This guide breaks each of these down by explaining what they do and how they work. We also summarize the main pros and cons when matching the services together, then provide a summary at the end.

Elastic Block Store

Amazon Elastic Block Store 🔗 or EBS is a high-performance, block-storage service that provides volumes that work with any operating system running in EC2.

EBS volumes attach to Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances for transaction-heavy workloads that scale. Large enterprise apps may use EBS to store self-managed relational and NoSQL databases. They may then run big data analytics engines against this information that work at lightning speed.

Amazon offers six types of volume to suit any budget and performance specification. They come in either SSD or HDD flavours. Each can be fine-tuned, and the volume size increased without disrupting the overall service.

But what exactly is block storage, and what are the benefits it brings?

What is block storage?

Block-level storage saves data as ‘blocks’ or segments on cloud-based environments. Every block has its unique identifier but contains no related information like metadata.

Developers choose this option when they need ultra-quick, reliable, and efficient data access.

The reason is that blocks get stored wherever they’re most efficient. They don’t need to reside on one server or one specific operating system. Because they’re decoupled, the underlying storage system gathers blocks together as required. And that makes the service run fast.

AWS EBS Storage Pricing

EBS is priced based on a few different dimensions including the volume type (gp3, gp2, io2) and then the amount of storage by GB-month, provisioned IOPS (input/output operations per second) per month, and throughput measured in MB/s per month. More details on AWS EBS pricing is available at the AWS EBS pricing page 🔗.

Pros and cons of Elastic Block Store

EBS’s biggest strengths are its reliable performance and flexibility.

It’s ideal for apps that need low latency with many IO operations like database servers. It’s scalable, so you can add extra block storage volumes without dropping performance.

Unlike object storage, block stores only overwrite individual data blocks, not the entire object. That alone speeds the update process significantly.

While most EBS volumes can only bind to one server at a time, the launch of Amazon EBS Multi-Attach as outlined in this announcement 🔗 for provisioned IOPS volumes offers greater flexibility in some scenarios. AWS EBS multi-attach allows you to connect a single EBS volume to multiple instances of supported types, a feature that has been long awaited by many.

Searching blocks also takes time as they contain no corresponding metadata. On the flipside, it’s easy to set up automated EBS snapshots so your backup needs are taken care of.

EC2 Instance Store vs EBS

An EC2 instance store is a type of SSD storage located on the physical server that hosts an EC2 instance. Instance store is a kind of temporary block-level storage for your EC2 instance, which is located on disks that are directly attached to the host computer. Instance store is sometimes referred to as “ephemeral storage”.

Instance store is suitable for applications that require temporary storage, such as buffer caches, staging areas, and spooling directories. The data on your instance store volumes will be lost when the instance is stopped or terminated. Therefore, you should not use instance store for persistent data.

If you need persistent storage for your application, you can use Amazon EBS volumes instead of instance store volumes.

Which sort of storage do Amazon EFS and Amazon FSx provide?

Read on to find out more about these two distinct file storage solutions.

Elastic File System

Amazon Elastic File System 🔗 (EFS) is a fully managed and scalable NFS file system that can be mounted to Linux and Mac EC2 instances and on-premises compute resources.

EFS offers elastic/scalable storage, reaching petabytes of data without disrupting apps. The service works with thousands of Amazon EC2 instances with consistent low-latencies. That’s why many enterprises use it to transfer their apps directly onto the cloud.

Amazon EFS offers multiple storage classes: Standard, Standard-Infrequent Access (Standard-IA), EFS Archive, One Zone, and One Zone-Infrequent Access (One Zone-IA).

These classes help you balance durability, access latency, and cost depending on how frequently files are read and how resilient the workload needs to be.

What is file system storage?

File storage, or file-level/file-based storage, has been a staple of traditional computing for decades.

Data gets saved in directory trees, folders, and traditional files. It’s similar to a local hard drive running Microsoft Windows or Linux. There’s one way to access data, unlike block storage’s method of distribution.

A user-level interface works with file storage data to retrieve, save, and delete files and hierarchies.

This layer of abstraction is great when working with cloud data. And AWS overcomes the problems of limited storage with NAS technology by providing a scalable way to save information.

AWS EFS Pricing

EFS pricing is usage-based. You are billed for the storage class used, throughput mode where applicable, and retrieval/access charges for lower-cost classes such as IA and Archive.

Because EFS pricing varies by region and storage class, use the official AWS EFS pricing page 🔗 for current rates.

Pros and cons of Elastic File System

Does your business need a centralized way to store files within a hierarchical folder system? Do you need that data to be easily accessible, scalable, and affordable? If so, the AWS EFS is a perfect choice.

EFS makes shared file systems cloud-compatible and is simple to integrate without significant code changes.

EFS filesystems have UNIX-style user/group permissions and enforces the POSIX chown_restricted attribute.

On the downside, file-based storage doesn’t offer the same performance level as block storage on an IOPS basis. It also only operates with standard protocols like NTFS and NFS. That restricts usage across different platforms.

EFS is not compatible with Windows.

Amazon FSx

Amazon FSx is a family of fully managed file systems built for different workload patterns. Instead of one storage engine, FSx provides purpose-built options:

1. Amazon FSx for Windows File Server: Managed SMB file shares for Windows-centric enterprise apps and user home directories, with Active Directory integration.
2. Amazon FSx for Lustre: High-throughput, low-latency shared file storage for high-performance computing, machine learning, and analytics.
3. Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP: Multi-protocol storage (NFS, SMB, iSCSI) with ONTAP data management capabilities such as snapshots and replication.
4. Amazon FSx for OpenZFS: Managed OpenZFS storage for Linux/Unix-style workloads that need low latency and POSIX-compatible file semantics.

AWS also offers Amazon FSx File Gateway to provide on-premises SMB access to FSx for Windows File Server.

Each FSx option includes managed operations such as backups, monitoring integration, and encryption in transit/at rest.

For an AWS FSx FAQ of sorts, visit the AWS FSx documentation 🔗

AWS FSx Pricing

FSx pricing depends on which FSx file system you use. In general, costs are driven by dimensions like storage capacity, throughput/IOPS configuration, backup usage, and (for some FSx types) request or data transfer characteristics.

Because pricing models and regional rates differ across FSx for Windows File Server, Lustre, ONTAP, and OpenZFS, review the relevant AWS FSx pricing pages 🔗.

Pros and cons of Amazon FSx

FSx gives you managed file storage without running your own file-server infrastructure. You can choose the variant that matches your protocol and performance needs, from enterprise SMB to HPC and multi-protocol NAS.

It integrates with AWS networking and security controls and supports encryption and backup workflows that are hard to standardize consistently in self-managed deployments.

The tradeoff is platform complexity: you need to choose the right FSx flavor and performance profile for your workload, and costs can rise if throughput/IOPS are overprovisioned.

Amazon S3

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) offers scalable and secure object storage for any data type.

Businesses of all sizes use AWS S3 to host their website files, mobile apps, data archives, and data lakes. The ‘simple’ part refers to how easy the service is to integrate with your use-cases. An easy-to-use API enables quick file operations using the command line, SDKs and the web console. Millions of companies worldwide take advantage of S3 to store and share their data on the cloud.

S3 has built-in data redundancy so there is no need to backup data you have stored in S3 but if you have a requirement to copy your data to another region or bucket you can configure S3 to automatically replicate your objects to a different AWS region with what is called S3 Cross-Region Replication (CRR) or to another bucket in the same region by using S3 Same-Region Replication (SRR). This will of course increase your storage costs.

S3 has versioning optionally available with the flick of a switch so you can keep older versions of your objects if needed.

Pros and cons of Amazon Simple Storage Service

Amazon S3 requires no up-front investment, so you can use the service as needed. Pricing is typically based on storage amount, request volume, retrieval behavior (for colder tiers), and data transfer. There are multiple storage classes with varying cost and retrieval characteristics. You can configure lifecycle policies to automatically transition data across classes toward colder storage. S3’s very high data durability (up to 99.999999999% durability) makes it an excellent option for reliable, long-term storage of critical files.

The service is affordable and scales automatically. Objects can include any data, so S3 lets you serve videos to spreadsheets and everything in between.

S3 forms the backbone of AWS file sharing solutions like the Media Exchange on AWS 🔗 solution.

The web interface can take some getting used to, but it’s important to take the time to go through all the tabs and options to ensure your buckets have been configured with the privacy, access policy, and encryption options required for your particular use case.

You can get started very quickly with S3 on the default tier, but this is also the most expensive so it’s worthwhile to read the documentation and make sure you’ve chosen the right option for your use case.

EBS vs EFS vs FSx vs S3

Choosing the right storage option for your cloud architecture design depends on what you need it to do.

For Windows Server requirements, choose the new FSx storage. It’s designed to work with that platform and optimized with SMB in mind and is a great AWS fileserver solution.

If you need high-speed, low-latency data access for individual EC2 instances, choose EBS.

Elastic File System is perfect if you use a folder/file system and need something that automatically scales in size, and it can be mounted to multiple EC2 instances. Choose this if you must attach to Linux or Mac instances.

Finally, for everything else, use S3.

AWS Simple Storage Service holds any type of data object you throw at it. So if you’re not sure of all the kinds of objects you’ll need to store or how you will process them, choose S3.

Implementation Next Step

Start with one production workload, document its access pattern and recovery requirements, then choose the storage option that meets those constraints before scaling the same decision framework across the environment.