An instance store provides temporary block-level storage for an Amazon EC2 instance.
An instance store is (local) disk storage that is physically attached to the host computer for an EC2 instance, and therefore has the same lifespan as the instance. When the instance is terminated, you lose any data in the instance store.
Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) is a service that provides block-level storage volumes that you can use with Amazon EC2 instances.
If you stop or terminate an Amazon EC2 instance, all the data on the attached EBS volume remains available.
EBS allows you to take incremental backups of your data called snapshots.
An EBS snapshot is an incremental backup. This means that the first backup taken of a volume copies all the data. For subsequent backups, only the blocks of data that have changed since the most recent snapshot are saved.
In object storage, each object consists of data, metadata, and a key.
Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is a service that provides object-level storage.
When selecting an Amazon S3 storage class, consider these two factors:
All objects from this storage class are replicated and stored across at least three geographically dispersed Availability Zones.
Amazon S3 Outposts delivers object storage to your on-premises AWS Outposts environment.
EFS is a managed file system. In file storage, multiple clients can access data that is stored in shared file folders.
Compared to block storage and object storage, file storage is ideal for use cases in which a large number of services and resources need to access the same data at the same time.
Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) is a scalable file system used with AWS Cloud services and on-premises resources.
Amazon EBS volumes attach to EC2 instances and are an Availability Zone-level resource. In order to attach EC2 to EBS, you need to be in the same AZ. EBS doesn’t automatically scale.
EFS allows you to have multiple instances accessing the data in EFS at the same time. It’s a regional resource and stores data in and across multiple AZs, meaning any EC2 instance in the Region can write to the EFS file system. As you write more data to EFS, it automatically scales.
Amazon EC2 instances are virtual servers. If you start an instance from a stopped state, the instance might start on another host, where the previously used instance store volume does not exist. Therefore, AWS recommends instance stores for use cases that involve temporary data that you do not need in the long term.
Incremental backups are different from full backups, in which all the data in a storage volume copies each time a backup occurs. The full backup includes data that has not changed since the most recent backup.
When you modify a file in block storage, only the pieces that are changed are updated. When a file in object storage is modified, the entire object is updated.
When you decide between the options for archival storage, consider how quickly you must retrieve the archived objects.
Object storage treats any file as a complete, discreet object. Block storage breaks those files down to small component parts or blocks.
If you are using complete objects or only occasional changes, S3 is the right choice. If you are doing complex read, write, change functions, then use EBS.
On-premises servers can access EFS using AWS Direct Connect.