01. EC2 Storage Options
Amazon EC2 supports several storage options, each designed for different performance, durability, and cost requirements. These storage types can be combined to meet application-specific needs from high-performance computing to large-scale data storage.
| 🗂️ Type | 📝 Description | 🧱 Durability | ⚡ Performance | 💡 Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EBS (Elastic Block Store) | Network-attached storage that persists independently of the EC2 instance. | Persistent | High (depends on volume type) | Databases, file systems, application data |
| Instance Store | Physically attached storage providing very high I/O performance (local to the host). | Ephemeral (lost when instance stops or terminates) | Extremely High | Cache, temporary files, buffer, scratch data |
| EFS (Elastic File System) | Managed shared file system for Linux instances. Scales automatically as files are added or removed. | Persistent | Moderate | Shared storage, web content, containerized workloads |
| S3 (Simple Storage Service) | Object storage with 11 nines durability, infinite scalability, and low cost. | Persistent | Variable | Backups, static websites, data lakes, logs |
| FSx (Amazon FSx) | Fully managed file system service providing native Windows File Server and Lustre for HPC workloads. | Persistent | Very High (optimized for workload type) | Windows apps, HPC, machine learning, data analytics |
☁️ Amazon EC2 Storage Architecture
EC2 instances can attach to or interact with multiple storage types depending on requirements:
- EBS Volumes → Persistent block storage over the network.
- Instance Store → Local disks with ultra-fast I/O performance.
- EFS → Elastic file system for Linux shared workloads.
- FSx → Fully managed Windows or high-performance Lustre file system.
- S3 → Object storage for backups, archives, and static data.