Amazon Cloud Storage Services (AWS)

Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a comprehensive suite of cloud storage solutions to meet the needs of modern applications — from websites and mobile apps to big data analytics and long-term archives. This tutorial walks you through the key storage services in AWS, explaining what they are, how they work, and where to use them.

1. Amazon S3 – Object Storage for the Cloud

Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) is the most commonly used AWS storage service. It allows you to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web.

Key Features:

• Stores data as objects (files) in buckets. 
• Each object has a key (name) and metadata. 
• Supports versioning, access control, and lifecycle rules. 
• Integrated with S3 Glacier for archiving.

Common Use Cases:

• Website assets (HTML, images, videos) 
• Application data Backups and disaster recovery 
• Big data storage

Example: Upload an image file to an S3 bucket and use it in your web app using the object URL.

2. Amazon EBS – Block Storage for EC2 Instances

Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store) provides block-level storage volumes for use with EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) instances. Think of it like an external hard drive attached to your virtual machine.

Key Features:

• Persistent storage — data remains even if the instance is stopped. 
• Volumes can be resized or backed up as snapshots. 
• Performance options: General Purpose SSD, Provisioned IOPS SSD, Throughput Optimized HDD, Cold HDD.

Common Use Cases:

• Operating systems 
• Databases 
• Transactional workloads

When launching an EC2 instance, choose an EBS volume to store your OS and application data.

3. Amazon EFS – Shared File System for Linux

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) offers a fully managed, scalable file storage that can be mounted by multiple EC2 instances at the same time — just like a shared network drive.

Key Features:

• POSIX-compliant (works like a traditional Linux file system). 
• Automatically scales based on file system usage. 
• Can be accessed from multiple Availability Zones.

Common Use Cases:

• Web server clusters 
• Home directories 
• Content management systems

Example: Mount an EFS file system on two EC2 instances and share data between them.

4. Amazon FSx – Specialized File Systems

Amazon FSx provides fully managed file storage built for specific use cases.

Types of FSx:

• FSx for Windows File Server: Ideal for Windows-based applications. Supports SMB protocol. 
• FSx for Lustre: High-performance storage for compute-intensive workloads like machine learning, analytics, and video processing.

Common Use Cases:

• Enterprise applications needing Windows compatibility 
• High-performance computing (HPC)

Use FSx for Lustre if your analytics workload needs fast access to large datasets.

5. Amazon S3 Glacier – Low-Cost Archival Storage

Amazon S3 Glacier and Glacier Deep Archive are designed for long-term data archiving at a fraction of the cost of S3.

Key Features:

• Extremely low cost per GB. 
• Data retrieval ranges from minutes (Expedited) to hours (Standard, Bulk). 
• Supports object locking and compliance use cases.

Common Use Cases:

• Legal archives 
• Historical data 
• Compliance records

Example: Set a lifecycle rule in S3 to automatically move files older than 90 days to Glacier.

6. AWS Storage Gateway – Hybrid Storage

AWS Storage Gateway connects your on-premises applications with AWS cloud storage, enabling hybrid cloud scenarios.

Modes of Operation:

• File Gateway: Exposes an NFS/SMB file share backed by S3. 
• Volume Gateway: Block storage volumes that can be backed up to AWS. 
• Tape Gateway: Virtual tape library backed by S3/Glacier.

Common Use Cases:

• Backup and restore 
• Disaster recovery 
• Cloud-based file sharing

Use File Gateway to allow your office file server to archive old documents in S3 automatically.

7. AWS Backup – Centralized Backup Management

AWS Backup provides a centralized way to automate backups across AWS services like EBS, RDS, DynamoDB, EFS, and Storage Gateway.

Key Features:

• Policy-driven backup plans. 
• Point-in-time recovery. 
• Compliance monitoring and reporting.

Common Use Cases:

• Enterprise-wide backup strategies 
• Regulatory compliance

Example: Create a backup plan that takes daily snapshots of all EBS volumes across your EC2 instances.

8. Amazon S3 on Outposts – Local Object Storage

S3 on Outposts allows you to use S3 storage locally on AWS Outposts hardware deployed in your own data center.

Key Features:

• Same APIs and features as Amazon S3. 
• On-premises data residency. 
• Ideal for latency-sensitive or regulated workloads.

Use Case:

• Organizations with data residency requirements 
• Applications needing local processing and storage

9. AWS Snow Family – Edge and Data Transfer

The AWS Snow Family offers physical devices for transferring data to AWS or running edge computing applications in remote locations. Different variants are:

• Snowcone: Small, portable device for edge computing. 
• Snowball: Medium-scale data transfer and edge compute. 
• Snowmobile: Exabyte-scale data transfer using a shipping container.

Use Cases:

• Large-scale data migrations 
• Remote site deployments 
• Disaster recovery

Example: Use a Snowball to transfer 100 TB of backup data to AWS from a location with no reliable internet.

 

AWS provides flexible storage options to suit every workload — from high-performance computing and transactional systems to long-term archival and hybrid cloud integrations.

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Happy Exploring!