AWS Storage services

AWS provides storage services so that the application users can store data using services provided by AWS:

There are different types of Storage supported by AWS: 

1. Instance storage
2. Elastic Block Storage (EBS)
3. Secured Storage Service (S3)
4. Glacier
5. Elastic File system

Instance storage: 

The data is stored directly in the instance, if the instance dies, the data also dies. 

Elastic Block storage (EBS)

If you want the data to be persisted irrespective of the instance life cycle, then you can go for EBS option. 

There are 3 different volume types in EBS: 

• Magnetic - still around (based on magnetic disks)
• General Purpose - default one
• Provisioned IOPS - premium offering, extremely fast. 

You can think of EBS as a external hard drive where data will be available even if the system is switched off. Similarly you can create an EC2 instance, Choose EBS option and choose size and then attach to the EC2 instance. 

Secured storage service (S3): 

S3 is a storage as a service solution from Amazon which the users can use to upload the content and download using REST APIs of AWS. S3 data can be replicated across different region. You pay less for the data you use. 

Glacier: 

Glacier is similar to S3 in terms of storage as a service, but it is meant for people to store archival data where the reads are not frequent. You can store large volume of data and you pay extremely less for this. But you might need wait for hours to retrieve the data. 

Elastic file system (EFS): 

EFS is a new file storage service from Amazon where the storage capacity is elastic, growing and shrinking automatically  as  you add / remove files. So the application have the storage they need. Multiple EC2 instances can access an Amazon EFS system.