Yes, good point. This would provide effectively "infinite" backing storage. There might be some hurdles to overcome, though. For example, when you delete a file

Yes, good point. This would provide effectively "infinite" backing storage. There might be some hurdles to overcome, though. For example, when you delete a file, will EBS know that the blocks are now free and thus can be decommissioned? This might mean the whole stack needs to support things like TRIM. I'm not sure the rest of the stack is smart enough yet. I'd love to hear from a storage/FS expert on this. Edit: coincidentally, I just saw this article about XFS which observes the following: "Over the next five or more years, XFS needs to have better integration with the block devices it sits on top of. Information needs to pass back and forth between XFS and the block device, [says Dave Chinner]. That will allow better support of thin provisioning." https://lwn.net/Articles/638546/ https://lwn.net/Articles/638546/