Basic13 min read

Storage Services

Store and manage data on AWS — S3 object storage, EBS block storage, EFS shared file systems, and Glacier archival.

Amazon S3

S3 stores objects (files) in buckets. Buckets are globally unique names. Objects have keys (paths), data, and metadata. S3 provides 99.999999999% (11 nines) durability.

Storage classes optimize cost: Standard (frequent access), Intelligent-Tiering (automatic), Standard-IA (infrequent), Glacier Instant Retrieval, Glacier Flexible Retrieval, and Glacier Deep Archive.

Bucket names must be globally unique across all AWS accounts
Enable versioning for protection against accidental deletion
Use lifecycle rules to transition objects to cheaper storage classes

# Create bucket and upload
aws s3 mb s3://my-app-assets --region us-east-1
aws s3 cp ./build/ s3://my-app-assets/ --recursive
aws s3 sync ./build/ s3://my-app-assets/ --delete

# Enable versioning
aws s3api put-bucket-versioning \
  --bucket my-app-assets \
  --versioning-configuration Status=Enabled

EBS Volumes

Elastic Block Store provides persistent block storage for EC2 instances. Volume types: gp3 (general purpose, baseline 3000 IOPS), io2 (high IOPS), st1 (throughput optimized HDD), sc1 (cold HDD).

EBS volumes persist independently of EC2 instance lifecycle. Snapshot volumes to S3 for backup. Copy snapshots across regions for disaster recovery.

# Create and attach EBS volume
aws ec2 create-volume \
  --availability-zone us-east-1a \
  --size 100 --volume-type gp3 --iops 3000

aws ec2 attach-volume \
  --volume-id vol-0123456789 \
  --instance-id i-0123456789 \
  --device /dev/sdf

Amazon EFS

EFS provides scalable, shared file storage for EC2, ECS, and Lambda. Multiple instances mount the same filesystem simultaneously. Automatically scales storage up and down.

Use EFS for content management, web serving, data sharing, and container persistent storage. EFS Infrequent Access reduces cost for rarely accessed files.

# Mount EFS on EC2
sudo mount -t nfs4 \
  -o nfsvers=4.1,rsize=1048576,wsize=1048576,hard,timeo=600,retrans=2 \
  fs-0123456789.efs.us-east-1.amazonaws.com:/ /mnt/efs

S3 Best Practices

Block public access by default. Use bucket policies and IAM for access control. Enable server-side encryption (SSE-S3 or SSE-KMS). Configure lifecycle rules to transition and expire objects.

Use S3 event notifications to trigger Lambda on uploads. Enable access logging for audit trails. Consider S3 Transfer Acceleration for faster uploads from distant clients.

{
  "Rules": [{
    "ID": "archive-old-logs",
    "Filter": { "Prefix": "logs/" },
    "Status": "Enabled",
    "Transitions": [{
      "Days": 30,
      "StorageClass": "STANDARD_IA"
    }, {
      "Days": 90,
      "StorageClass": "GLACIER"
    }]
  }]
}

Storage Selection Guide

S3 for objects: static assets, backups, data lakes, logs. EBS for instance-attached storage: databases, boot volumes, application data. EFS for shared file access across instances. Glacier for long-term archival and compliance.

Most applications use S3 extensively. EBS is required for EC2 boot volumes. EFS fills the niche when multiple instances need shared file access.