3 ms·

Price is a bit high $0.3 GB / month vs. $0.1 GB / month for SSD EBS and even less for local storage. S3 is even cheaper $0.03 GB / month. So EFS is 10 times mor

Price is a bit high $0.3 GB / month vs. $0.1 GB / month for SSD EBS and even less for local storage. S3 is even cheaper $0.03 GB / month. So EFS is 10 times more expensive than S3. On I/O front also EBS (gp2) and (st1) are several times cheaper. So most of EFS advantages are in flexibility and sharing same file system across many instances. This may be great e.g. for sharing readonly binaries, but large scale data pipeline likely can be done much cheaper using different technologies.

KaiserPro 10y ago
You are right for small scale things. I'll have to double check my working out, but you're only paying for what you use, not provision, which is one big things. Also, if you have > 3 machines working from the same dataset (ie docker image/video/large binaryblob) there is an instant saving, without factoring in provisioned vs useable space with EBS but, your original point, as a 1-1 replacement of a properly sized EBS mount, is correct, its more expensive.
- pmalynin 10y ago
  Nitpick "large binaryblob" is literally "large binary binary large object"
  - KaiserPro 10y ago
    Haha, point taken.
Corrado 10y ago
I think EFS is meant for large read-heavy patterns, at least that's what we used it for. For example, I help run an e-commerce site that has a lot of content (JS, CSS, images, etc.) that we serve up from 10 dedicated servers as well as 30 general servers. When we release new content we have to update each of the servers and make sure that everything got installed properly everywhere. With EFS, we just have to update one thing and everyone gets it automatically.
- lucaspiller 10y ago
  Why don't you use S3 and Cloudfront to serve all the assets?
  - lsaferite 10y ago
    Maybe their platform wasn't designed around using S3 and retrofitting that into the platform is a significant task compared to using EFS as the backing store with CloudFront mediating client access?
    - Corrado 10y ago
      Exactly! The code base is going on 15 years old and was built with no knowledge of S3 or it's ilk. For that reason each WWW server has to have a local copy of all the assets (or at least a significant portion).
saurik 10y ago
> On I/O front also EBS (gp2) and (st1) are several times cheaper. Isn't I/O for EFS free?
- jakozaur 10y ago
  You don't pay extra for IO on EFS and some types of EBS (like mentioned here gp2). However, for some applications you optimize your storage to get most IO per $. In that terms EFS comes with some IO capacity as well as EBS. The point is that EBS is way cheaper in that use case.

KaiserPro 10y ago

You are right for small scale things. I'll have to double check my working out, but you're only paying for what you use, not provision, which is one big things. Also, if you have > 3 machines working from the same dataset (ie docker image/video/large binaryblob) there is an instant saving, without factoring in provisioned vs useable space with EBS but, your original point, as a 1-1 replacement of a properly sized EBS mount, is correct, its more expensive.

pmalynin 10y ago
Nitpick "large binaryblob" is literally "large binary binary large object"
- KaiserPro 10y ago
  Haha, point taken.

Corrado 10y ago

I think EFS is meant for large read-heavy patterns, at least that's what we used it for. For example, I help run an e-commerce site that has a lot of content (JS, CSS, images, etc.) that we serve up from 10 dedicated servers as well as 30 general servers. When we release new content we have to update each of the servers and make sure that everything got installed properly everywhere. With EFS, we just have to update one thing and everyone gets it automatically.

lucaspiller 10y ago
Why don't you use S3 and Cloudfront to serve all the assets?
- lsaferite 10y ago
  Maybe their platform wasn't designed around using S3 and retrofitting that into the platform is a significant task compared to using EFS as the backing store with CloudFront mediating client access?
  - Corrado 10y ago
    Exactly! The code base is going on 15 years old and was built with no knowledge of S3 or it's ilk. For that reason each WWW server has to have a local copy of all the assets (or at least a significant portion).

saurik 10y ago

> On I/O front also EBS (gp2) and (st1) are several times cheaper. Isn't I/O for EFS free?

jakozaur 10y ago
You don't pay extra for IO on EFS and some types of EBS (like mentioned here gp2). However, for some applications you optimize your storage to get most IO per $. In that terms EFS comes with some IO capacity as well as EBS. The point is that EBS is way cheaper in that use case.