AWS Storage Solutions — Deep Dive
In this blog post, we explore the fundamental types of cloud storage (block, object, file), how AWS implements them, and when to use each for real-world workloads. We also cover lifecycle, backup, security, and hybrid storage via AWS Storage Gateway. At the end, you’ll see three concrete scenarios showing how AWS instructors might explain the choices among Amazon S3, EBS, and EFS in business contexts.
1. Storage Paradigms: Block vs Object vs File
1.1 What is block storage?
Block storage slices data into fixed-sized “blocks” (e.g. 512 bytes, 4 KB, etc.). Each block has its own address and can be accessed independently, but there is no inherent file structure — the operating system or file system layer must organize blocks into files and directories.
- Pros / characteristics
• Very low latency and high IOPS — ideal for performance-critical workloads (e.g. databases)
• Fine-grained, random-access updates (you can change a single block)
• Presents as a raw volume to the host OS
• Requires a file system on top (like ext4, XFS, NTFS) to manage directories, metadata, permissions - Limitations
• Doesn’t inherently scale across many nodes
• No built-in metadata (beyond basic block address)
• More operational overhead (provisioning, managing throughput)
1.2 What is object storage?
Object storage treats each file (or data blob) as an independent “object,” containing the data, its metadata, and a globally unique identifier, stored in a flat namespace (no directory tree).
- Pros / characteristics
• Nearly infinite horizontal scalability — you can store billions of objects
• Rich, customizable metadata (tags, versioning, ACLs)
• Accessed via RESTful APIs (HTTP/S) rather than block interfaces
• Durable and fault tolerant by design (often replicated across zones)
• Ideal for write-once-read-many (WORM) or archival workloads - Limitations
• Higher access latency than block storage
• Objects must be manipulated as a whole (you can’t update a small part of an object easily)
• Not suited for applications expecting POSIX file semantics
1.3 What is file (network-attached) storage?
File storage presents data via a hierarchical file system — directories, subdirectories, files — accessed over a network (e.g. NFS, SMB). The underlying storage might itself be block-based, but the interface to clients is file-level.
- Pros / characteristics
• Familiar model (like shared directories) — clients mount it like a normal file system
• Supports file locking, permission semantics, directory operations
• Good for shared workloads (e.g. home directories, web content, shared media)
• Server-side handles organization and metadata - Limitations
• Scaling and performance can become bottlenecks
• Latency is higher than local block storage
• Complexity to synchronize metadata and manage concurrency
1.4 Comparison and when to use what
| Storage Type | Interface / Access Model | Strengths | Tradeoffs | Typical Use Cases |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Block | Raw volumes, attached to host | Low latency, high IOPS, random access | Must manage file system, limited scaling | Databases, transactional systems, boot volumes |
| Object | REST API (HTTP/S) | Massive scale, metadata-rich, durability | Latency, whole-object updates, no POSIX semantics | Backup, archives, media libraries, data lakes |
| File | NFS / SMB over network | Shared access, directory semantics | Scaling limitations, network overhead | Content repositories, home folders, shared applications |
Because AWS storage offerings map closely to these paradigms, knowing their differences helps you choose the right service for each workload.
2. AWS Shared Responsibility Model for Storage
The AWS shared responsibility model describes what AWS takes care of, and what the customer is responsible for. In the context of storage:
- AWS responsibilities
• Underlying infrastructure: hardware, network, data center security, durability, replication, and foundational storage stack
• Service-level features like encryption at rest, availability zones, multi-AZ replication where applicable
• Patching, reliability, scaling, redundancies - Customer responsibilities
• Data integrity, backups, versioning, retention policies
• Access control (IAM roles, bucket policies, access control lists)
• Encryption keys (if customer-managed), secure credentials
• Lifecycle policies, managing costs of storage, correct provisioning
• Ensuring correct configuration (e.g. enabling versioning, encryption, lifecycle transitions)
In short: AWS ensures the storage platform is secure and durable; the customer ensures their data is protected, well-governed, and properly configured.
3. Block Storage in AWS: EC2 Instance Store & Amazon EBS
3.1 EC2 Instance Store
What it is & how it works
Each EC2 instance type may include instance store volumes that are physically attached to the host (ephemeral). The storage is local to the host machine.
Benefits
- Extremely high I/O performance and low latency (since it’s local)
- Useful for scratch space, caches, temporary data, buffer zones
Use cases
- Temporary caches (e.g. in-memory databases spillover)
- Scratch or intermediate processing (e.g. video rendering)
- Data that can be regenerated and not needed long-term
Caveats
- Data is lost when the instance stops, hibernates, or fails — it is ephemeral
- Not suitable for persistent storage or workloads needing durability
3.2 Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS)
What it is
Amazon EBS provides persistent, block-level storage volumes that can be attached to EC2 instances. These volumes remain independent of the life of the instance and can be snapshot or detached/reattached.
Benefits
- Persistence: survives instance termination (depending on deletion settings)
- Flexibility: can change volume size, type, and throughput (Elastic Volumes)
- Snapshots: point-in-time backups (stored in S3)
- Encryption: data at rest and in transit support
- High availability: replicate data within availability zone, automatic hardware failure mitigation
Use cases
- OS boot volumes
- Databases (e.g. MySQL, PostgreSQL), transactional applications
- File systems needing block semantics but persistent storage
- Systems where snapshot-based backup or restoration is required
4. Amazon EBS: Data Lifecycle and Snapshots
4.1 EBS Snapshots
What are they & how they work
Snapshots capture a point-in-time copy of an EBS volume; the initial snapshot copies the full volume, while subsequent snapshots are incremental — only changed blocks are saved.
Snapshots are stored in Amazon S3 behind the scenes (users don’t access them like typical S3 objects).
Use cases
- Backup and disaster recovery
- Cloning volumes or restoring in another AZ or region
- Baseline images for new EC2 instances (e.g. golden images)
4.2 EBS Data Lifecycle & Integration
You can automate snapshot management via Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM), which helps you schedule creation, retention, and deletion of snapshots and EBS-backed AMIs.
DLM enables you to:
- Enforce consistent backup schedules
- Retain snapshots based on compliance requirements
- Clean up old snapshots to control costs
- Copy snapshots across accounts or regions
Important: DLM cannot manage snapshots created outside DLM (i.e. manual snapshots).
4.3 Customer responsibilities with snapshots & DLM
- You must tag volumes and snapshots appropriately so DLM policies match resources
- You define retention, schedule, and copy policies
- You monitor snapshot storage costs, lifecycle, and clean-up
- Ensure snapshot consistency (e.g. quiescing the file system or application I/O)
Thus, while AWS provides the infrastructure and automation tools, you must design policies and guardrails to keep costs and risk in check.
5. Object Storage in AWS: Amazon S3
5.1 What is Amazon S3?
Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) is AWS’s flagship object storage service, providing durable, scalable, and highly available object storage via a simple web interface.
You organize data in buckets, where each object is identified by a unique key name. Objects can be up to 5 TB in size.
Benefits and use cases
- Infinite scalability, durability, and global redundancy
- Versioning, lifecycle, cross-region replication
- Data lakes, media repositories, analytics pipeline input, static website hosting, backup/archival
- Integration with AWS analytics, machine learning, serverless compute
5.2 Security management in S3
Key features include:
- Access control: IAM policies, bucket policies, ACLs
- Encryption: Server-side encryption (SSE-S3, SSE-KMS) or client-side encryption
- Object versioning & MFA delete: Support for retention, protection from accidental deletion
- Logging & monitoring: S3 access logs, AWS CloudTrail, event notifications
- Bucket isolation & public access blocking: Ensure only intended access
- Cross-region replication (CRR) for geo-resilience
These features help you meet compliance, governance, and security posture needs.
5.3 S3 Storage Classes & Lifecycle
S3 offers multiple storage classes that trade cost and performance:
- S3 Standard — general-purpose, high throughput, frequent access
- S3 Standard – Infrequent Access (IA) — lower cost for less-frequently accessed data
- S3 One Zone – IA — same as IA but stored in one AZ (cheaper, less redundancy)
- S3 Intelligent-Tiering — auto-moves objects between access tiers based on usage
- S3 Glacier Flexible / Deep Archive — for long-term archival (lower cost, slower retrieval)
You can define Lifecycle policies to automatically transition or expire objects (e.g. move to IA after 30 days, Glacier after 365 days). Lifecycle rules help control costs over time by aging out infrequently accessed data.
Lifecycle policies directly influence your monthly S3 billing because storage class and transitions impact cost.
6. File Storage in AWS: Amazon EFS & Amazon FSx
6.1 Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)
Overview
EFS is a fully managed, elastic, shared file system for Linux workloads, accessible via NFS (v4.0 / v4.1).
Benefits & use cases
- Multiple EC2 instances, containers, and even AWS Lambda (via EFS access points) can mount the same file system
- Automatically scales up/down as data is added/removed (no manual provisioning)
- Strong consistency and POSIX semantics (file locking, permissions)
- High durability and availability (redundant across AZs)
- Ideal for use cases like content management, shared code repos, home directories, web serving, media processing, analytics workloads
EFS Storage Classes & Pricing
EFS offers storage classes to optimize cost:
- Standard — for frequently accessed files
- Infrequent Access (IA) — lower-cost for less frequently accessed files
In addition, there are One Zone variants for reduced redundancy at lower cost.
EFS Lifecycle / Transition Policies
EFS supports lifecycle management: files not accessed for a threshold can be moved between classes (Standard → IA → Archive).
- Default: files not accessed in 30 days move to IA; 90 days move to Archive
- Metadata always remains in Standard to preserve directory structure and file attributes
- If a file in IA or Archive is accessed, you can configure whether to bring it back to Standard or leave it in the lower class
These transitions help balance cost and performance.
6.2 Amazon FSx
Amazon FSx provides managed file systems optimized for specific protocols and workloads, such as Windows (SMB), Lustre (HPC), or NetApp ONTAP.
Benefits & use cases
- FSx for Windows File Server: full Windows file system features (SMB, quotas, Active Directory integration) — ideal for Windows-based applications, shared drives, .NET workloads
- FSx for Lustre: high-performance, POSIX-compliant file system for HPC, big data, analytics, machine learning — integrates with S3 for data import/export
- FSx for NetApp ONTAP: multi-protocol support (NFS, SMB, iSCSI, and S3), advanced storage capabilities (snapshots, replication)
Key points
- You can mount FSx file systems from EC2, containers, on-prem systems (via gateways)
- Performance and throughput are configurable
- Encryption and backup features are present
- Supports multi-AZ deployment for availability
FSx gives you more specialized file storage tuned for specific ecosystem needs beyond what EFS offers.
7. AWS Storage Gateway
7.1 What is AWS Storage Gateway?
AWS Storage Gateway is a hybrid service bridging on-premises environments with AWS cloud storage. It offers gateway appliances (virtual or hardware) that expose storage interfaces (file, volume, tape) locally and then sync or back those to AWS.
Benefits & use cases
- Extend on-prem applications to use cloud backing storage transparently
- Migrate on-prem file systems to AWS gradually
- Use cloud for backups / archival while keeping local cache
- Hybrid workloads with low-latency local access
7.2 The three gateway types
- File Gateway (NFS/SMB)
• Presents file shares via NFS or SMB on-prem, backed by S3
• Good for files, uploads, content repositories, backup targets
• Uses S3 lifecycle, versioning, replication features
• Local cache improves performance - Volume Gateway (iSCSI block)
• Exposes local block volumes via iSCSI; data stored in S3 as EBS snapshots
• Two modes:
• Cached: primary data stored in S3, frequently accessed blocks cached locally
• Stored: entire volume kept locally, snapshot-backed to cloud
• Useful for hybrid databases or replication - Tape Gateway (VTL)
• Virtual tape library interface — your backup software writes to virtual tapes
• Those tapes are stored in S3 / Glacier (archival tiers)
• Useful when migrating legacy backup infrastructures to the cloud
Thus, Storage Gateway lets you choose the right gateway type to match your on-premises workload’s interface (file, block, tape) and gradually shift to cloud-based storage.
🌀 AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery
AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery is a fully managed service that minimizes downtime and data loss during IT disruptions by continuously replicating your servers—physical, virtual, or cloud-based—into AWS.
In the event of a disaster, you can launch recovery instances in minutes, ensuring your business operations continue seamlessly.
Key Benefits
- Continuous, block-level replication: Keeps your source servers synchronized in near real-time.
- Fast recovery: Spin up recovery environments within minutes in your chosen AWS Region.
- Cost efficiency: Uses low-cost staging resources until failover is required, reducing traditional DR infrastructure costs.
- Simplified management: Centralized console, automation tools, and integration with CloudFormation, CloudWatch, and IAM.
- Non-disruptive testing: Conduct failover tests without affecting live production workloads.
Use Cases
- On-premises disaster recovery: Replicate VMware, Hyper-V, or physical servers to AWS for rapid failover.
- Cross-region DR for AWS workloads: Replicate EC2 instances across Regions for high availability.
- Data center migration: Perform a one-time migration of workloads from on-prem or another cloud provider.
- Compliance and continuity: Meet strict RTO/RPO requirements with automated failover and recovery validation.
How It Works
- Install the AWS Replication Agent on your source servers.
- The agent continuously replicates data to a lightweight staging area subnet in AWS.
- When an outage occurs, launch recovery instances from the most recent snapshot.
- Once the issue is resolved, fail back to your original environment using built-in tools.
Integration Example
For a complete hybrid resilience solution:
- Use AWS Storage Gateway for on-prem backup or caching.
- Store snapshots and archived backups in Amazon S3 or S3 Glacier.
- Use AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery to replicate and recover entire workloads rapidly in AWS.
With this integrated approach, organizations achieve comprehensive business continuity, disaster recovery automation, and hybrid cloud resilience without costly secondary data centers.
8. Comparing Storage Services & Real-World Scenarios
Let’s examine how a company might combine and choose among EBS, S3, and EFS (or FSx) for different business problems. Highlighting three scenarios helps ground the concepts.
Scenario A: Web Hosting + Static Assets + Logs (Media / CMS)
Challenge: A company runs a web front-end + CMS + log ingestion. They need fast response for dynamic content, scalable asset storage, and durable logs backup.
Solution
- Use EBS volumes for the EC2-based web/application servers: OS, databases, state, caching (block storage).
- Use Amazon S3 to store static assets (images, CSS, JS), user uploads, media content. S3 provides infinite scale and cost-effective storage.
- Use EFS or FSx if multiple web servers need shared read/write access to content directories (e.g. user-generated content).
- Configure S3 lifecycle rules to move older logs to S3-IA or Glacier for cost savings.
- Use EBS snapshots for backups of critical volumes.
- Perhaps employ Storage Gateway to stage files from on-prem to S3, if there is a hybrid element.
This hybrid design maximizes performance where needed and offloads bulk, unstructured data to object storage.
Scenario B: Analytics / Big Data Pipeline
Challenge: A data science team needs to process large data sets (terabytes to petabytes), run distributed compute jobs, keep intermediate results, and archive raw data.
Solution
- Store raw ingestion data and long-term archives in Amazon S3 (object storage), perhaps in a data lake setup.
- During processing, mount EFS (or FSx for Lustre) as a shared file system for compute cluster nodes so they can read/write intermediate data.
- Optionally use EBS scratch volumes for node-local caching or temporary storage for throughput-critical tasks.
- Use S3 lifecycle policies and versioning to manage archival tiers.
- Use snapshots and DLM for any EBS volumes used during processing.
This ensures scalable, cost-effective storage for large data and fast shared access in compute clusters.
Scenario C: Corporate Shared File Storage + Backup
Challenge: A company wants to retire its on-prem file servers, provide a shared home directory and departmental drives, while retaining backups and support for Windows and Linux clients.
Solution
- Use Amazon EFS (for Linux/mixed clients) or FSx for Windows File Server (for Windows file shares) to host the shared directories in the cloud.
- Connect on-premises offices via Storage Gateway (File Gateway or FSx File Gateway) so users see familiar network shares, with local caching for performance.
- Employ backups via snapshots, AWS Backup, or FSx native backup.
- Use lifecycle management on file data (e.g. move cold data to cheaper classes).
- Store less-accessed files in lower-cost storage tiers or archive zones.
This approach smoothly migrates NAS-style workloads into managed, durable cloud infrastructure.
Conclusion & Best Practices
- Choose block storage (EBS or instance store) when you need low latency, random access, and OS-level volume access.
- Use object storage (S3) for large-scale, unstructured data, archival, media, backups, and data lakes.
- Use file storage (EFS, FSx, Gateway) when workloads require shared file semantics and network file protocol support.
- Automate snapshot / backup lifecycles (via DLM or AWS Backup) and lifecycle transitions (S3, EFS) to balance cost vs performance.
- Always enforce strong security: encryption, IAM, monitoring, and versioning.
- Leverage hybrid tools (Storage Gateway) to transition on-prem workloads gradually.