Storage
Three storage shapes — object, block, file — plus data-protection services. The shape decides the service.
| Service | Shape | Choose when | Key distinction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon S3 | Object | Web assets, backups, data lakes, any blob | Unlimited, HTTP API, 11 nines, not a file system |
| Amazon S3 Glacier | Object (archival) | Rarely accessed, cheapest long-term | Retrieval in minutes to hours |
| Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) | Block | A disk for one EC2 instance | One AZ, one instance, persists past the instance |
| EC2 Instance store | Block (ephemeral) | Scratch/cache needing max IOPS | Data dies on stop/terminate |
| Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) | File (NFS) | Shared file system for many Linux instances | Multi-AZ, elastic, mounted concurrently |
| Amazon FSx | File (Windows/Lustre/…) | Windows shares or HPC file systems | Third-party file systems, managed |
| AWS Storage Gateway | Hybrid | On-premises apps backed by cloud storage | Caches locally, stores in AWS |
| AWS Backup | Protection | Central backup policy across services | Point-in-time restore |
| AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery | Protection | Fast failover to AWS | Continuous replication, low RTO/RPO |
- Object vs block vs file: a blob over HTTP (S3), a raw disk for one instance (EBS), a shared mountable POSIX tree (EFS).
- EBS vs instance store: network-attached and persistent vs physically attached and ephemeral.
- AWS Backup vs Elastic DR: point-in-time restore vs live failover.