FluentsDevExam Prep
/Storage Services (S3, EBS, EFS, Glacier)
Concept Detail

Storage Services (S3, EBS, EFS, Glacier)

Difficulty: easy

Overview

AWS provides a variety of storage services for different use cases: object, block, and file storage.

Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) — Object Storage:

  • Virtually unlimited storage; 99.999999999% (11 nines) durability.
  • Objects up to 5 TB. Buckets are globally unique, region-specific.
  • Storage Classes (highest to lowest cost):
    1. S3 Standard — Frequent access; millisecond retrieval.
    2. S3 Intelligent-Tiering — Auto-moves between tiers; monitoring fee.
    3. S3 Standard-IA — Infrequent access; retrieval fee; 30-day minimum.
    4. S3 One Zone-IA — Like Standard-IA but single AZ; lower cost.
    5. S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval — Archival with millisecond retrieval.
    6. S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval — 1 min to 12-hour retrieval.
    7. S3 Glacier Deep Archive — Lowest cost; 12-hour retrieval; once/year access.
  • Key Features: Versioning, Lifecycle policies, Cross-Region Replication, Pre-signed URLs, Server-side encryption.

Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store) — Block Storage:

  • Persistent network-attached storage for EC2 instances.
  • Stays in one AZ; must be in same AZ as the EC2 instance.
  • Can be detached and reattached; survives instance stop/termination.
  • Snapshots to S3 for backup and cross-AZ/region copy.

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) — File Storage:

  • Fully managed NFS file system; scales automatically.
  • Multi-attach: Thousands of EC2 instances can mount simultaneously.
  • Regional service (spans multiple AZs).

Instance Store:

  • Temporary block storage physically attached to the EC2 host.
  • Extremely fast, but ephemeral — data lost when instance stops or terminates.

Amazon FSx:

  • Managed third-party file systems: FSx for Windows (SMB), FSx for Lustre (HPC).

AWS Snow Family:

  • Physical devices to migrate large data sets: Snowcone (8 TB), Snowball Edge (80 TB), Snowmobile (100 PB).

AWS Storage Gateway:

  • Hybrid storage connecting on-premises to AWS; use cases: backup, file sharing, tape replacement.

Practice Linked Questions

easy

Q1. What type of storage does Amazon S3 provide?

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easy

Q2. Which S3 storage class provides the LOWEST cost for data that is accessed at most once or twice per year and can tolerate retrieval times of up to 12 hours?

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easy

Q3. What is the durability guarantee of Amazon S3?

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easy

Q4. A company needs block storage that persists independently after an EC2 instance is stopped or terminated and can be re-attached to a different instance. Which AWS service should they use?

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medium

Q5. What is the key difference between Amazon EBS and EC2 Instance Store?

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medium

Q6. A company has 200 EC2 instances spread across multiple AZs that all need to read and write to the same shared file system simultaneously. Which storage service supports this?

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medium

Q7. A company needs to transfer 80 TB of on-premises data to AWS. Their internet connection is 100 Mbps and they calculate the transfer would take approximately 73 days. What is the MOST practical solution?

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medium

Q8. Which AWS service connects on-premises storage environments to AWS cloud storage, supporting use cases like backup to the cloud, file sharing, and tape replacement?

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medium

Q9. Which TWO Amazon S3 storage classes are specifically designed for infrequently accessed data but provide millisecond retrieval (unlike Glacier)? (Select TWO — more than one answer may be correct)

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easy

Q10. Which S3 feature keeps multiple versions of the same object to protect against accidental deletion and overwrites?

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