📌 Updated Guide Available: For a comprehensive comparison with architecture diagrams and practice questions, see our updated AWS S3 vs EBS vs EFS – Complete Storage Comparison Guide.
This page covers FSx in addition to S3, EBS, and EFS.
AWS S3 vs EBS vs EFS vs FSx
- AWS offers four primary storage services, each designed for different access patterns and use cases.
- S3 is object storage, EBS is block storage for EC2, EFS is managed NFS file storage, and FSx is managed file systems for specific workloads (Windows, Lustre, NetApp, OpenZFS).
- Choice depends on access patterns, performance needs, sharing requirements, and protocol compatibility.
S3 vs EBS vs EFS vs FSx Comparison
| Feature | S3 | EBS | EFS | FSx |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Object storage | Block storage | File storage (NFS) | File storage (multiple protocols) |
| Access | HTTP/HTTPS API | Attached to single EC2 (multi-attach for io2) | Concurrent access from multiple EC2/ECS/Lambda | Concurrent access from multiple instances |
| Protocol | REST API, S3 API | Block device (no protocol) | NFSv4.1 | SMB, NFS, Lustre, iSCSI |
| Max Size | Unlimited (5TB per object) | 64TB per volume | Unlimited (petabyte scale) | Varies (up to petabytes) |
| Durability | 99.999999999% (11 nines) | 99.999% (within AZ) | 99.999999999% (across AZs) | 99.999999999% (Multi-AZ option) |
| Availability Zone | Regional (across 3+ AZs) | Single AZ | Regional (Multi-AZ) | Single AZ or Multi-AZ |
| Performance | High throughput, higher latency | Low latency (sub-ms for io2) | Low latency, scales with file system | Sub-ms latency (Lustre/OpenZFS) |
| Use Case | Backup, data lake, static hosting, archive | Databases, boot volumes, transactional workloads | Shared content, CMS, home dirs, containers | HPC, Windows shares, ML training, ONTAP |
| Pricing Model | Per GB stored + requests + transfer | Per GB provisioned + IOPS (io2) | Per GB used (no provisioning) | Per GB provisioned + throughput |
| Lifecycle/Tiering | Yes (Intelligent-Tiering, Glacier) | No | Yes (EFS IA, Archive) | Limited (FSx Lustre S3 integration) |
| Encryption | SSE-S3, SSE-KMS, SSE-C | AES-256 (KMS) | AES-256 (KMS) | AES-256 (KMS) |
| Backup | Versioning, Cross-Region Replication | Snapshots (to S3) | AWS Backup | AWS Backup, automatic backups |
Amazon S3
- Object storage – stores data as objects (key-value) with unlimited capacity.
- Best for data lakes, backups, static website hosting, media storage, and archive.
- Multiple storage classes: Standard, IA, One Zone-IA, Intelligent-Tiering, Glacier Instant/Flexible/Deep Archive.
- Not a file system – cannot be mounted directly (use S3 Mountpoint for read-heavy workloads).
- Supports event notifications to Lambda, SQS, SNS, EventBridge for event-driven processing.
Amazon EBS
- Block-level storage designed for single EC2 instance attachment (io2 supports multi-attach).
- Best for databases, boot volumes, and applications requiring low-latency block access.
- Volume types: gp3 (general purpose), io2 Block Express (high IOPS), st1 (throughput), sc1 (cold).
- Single AZ – volume and instance must be in the same AZ; use snapshots for cross-AZ/region copies.
- Supports live volume resizing and type changes without downtime.
Amazon EFS
- Fully managed NFS file system – multiple EC2, ECS, and Lambda can access simultaneously.
- Best for shared content repositories, CMS, home directories, container storage, and ML training data.
- Elastic – automatically grows and shrinks; pay only for storage used.
- Performance modes: General Purpose (latency-sensitive) and Max I/O (high throughput).
- EFS Infrequent Access and Archive tiers reduce costs for rarely accessed files.
- Supports cross-region replication for DR.
Amazon FSx
- Managed file systems for specialized workloads – four options available.
- FSx for Windows File Server – fully managed Windows-native (SMB) with Active Directory integration.
- FSx for Lustre – high-performance parallel file system for HPC, ML training; integrates with S3.
- FSx for NetApp ONTAP – multi-protocol (NFS, SMB, iSCSI) with NetApp features (SnapMirror, FlexClone).
- FSx for OpenZFS – high-performance NFS with snapshots, cloning, and data compression.
When to Choose Which
- Choose S3 – Unstructured data, backups, data lake, web assets, archive, serverless data processing.
- Choose EBS – Database storage, single-instance applications requiring low-latency block I/O.
- Choose EFS – Shared Linux file system, containers needing shared storage, Lambda file access.
- Choose FSx for Windows – Windows applications, SMB shares, Active Directory integration.
- Choose FSx for Lustre – HPC, ML training, video processing needing sub-ms latency with S3 integration.
- Choose FSx for ONTAP – Multi-protocol access, hybrid cloud, applications needing NetApp features.
AWS Certification Exam Practice Questions
- A web application running on multiple EC2 instances across AZs needs shared access to uploaded user files. Which storage service is most appropriate?
- S3 with Mountpoint
- EBS Multi-Attach
- EFS
- FSx for OpenZFS
- A database workload requires consistent sub-millisecond latency with 64,000 IOPS on a single EC2 instance. Which storage should be used?
- EFS Max I/O mode
- S3 Express One Zone
- EBS io2 Block Express
- FSx for Lustre
- A company needs to migrate Windows file shares with Active Directory permissions to AWS. Which service maintains full compatibility?
- EFS
- S3
- FSx for OpenZFS
- FSx for Windows File Server
- An ML training job needs to process a 50TB dataset stored in S3 with the highest possible throughput. Which storage approach minimizes training time?
- Copy data to EBS gp3
- Access directly from S3
- FSx for Lustre linked to S3 bucket
- Copy to EFS
Related Posts
- AWS S3 Storage Classes
- AWS EBS Volume Types
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate Exam Learning Path
📖 Related: AWS S3 vs EBS vs EFS – Complete Storage Comparison Guide