EBS vs EFS vs Instance Store

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EBS

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One instance & locked in one AZ

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Snapshot to migrate across AZ

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Backups use IO

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EFS

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Multi-connection across AZ

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Only for Linux Instances (POSIX)

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Higher price point than EBS

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EC2 Instance Store

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Physically attached

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Ephemeral Storage

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EBS volumes…

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One instance (except multi-attach io1 / io2)

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Are locked at the Availability Zone (AZ) level

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gp2: IO increases if the disk size increases

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io1: can increase IO independently

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To migrate an EBS volume across AZ

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Take a snapshot

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Restore the snapshot to another AZ

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EBS backups use IO and you shouldn’t run them while your application is handling a lot of traffic

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Root EBS volumes of instances get terminated by default if the EC2 instance gets terminated. (Can disable this feature)

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Mounting 100s of instances across AZ

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EFS share website files (WordPress)

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Only for Linux Instances (POSIX)

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EFS has a higher price point than EBS

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Can leverage EFS-IA for cost savings

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Physically attached to the instances

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Will lose storage if instance is lost