EBS vs EFS

What's the difference. ?

• EBS volumes…

  • one instance (except multi-attach io1/io2)

  • are locked at the Availability Zone (AZ) level.

  • gp2: IO increases if the disk size increases.

  • io1: can increase IO independently.

• To migrate an EBS volume across AZ

  • Take a snapshot.

  • Restore the snapshot to another AZ.

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

• Root EBS Volumes of instances get terminated by default if the EC2 instance gets terminated. (You can disable that)

• Mounting 100s of instances across AZ

• EFS share website files (WordPress)

• Only for Linux Instances (POSIX)

• EFS has a higher price point than EBS

• Can leverage EFS-IA for cost savings

• Remember: EFS vs EBS vs Instance Store