Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) is designed to provide serverless, elastic file storage that lets you share file data without provisioning or managing storage capacity and performance. It can be used with AWS services and on-premises resources, and is designed to scale without disrupting applications.\n

Managed service\n

Amazon EFS is a managed service that is designed to provide NFS shared file system storage for Linux workloads. Amazon EFS helps you simplify creating and configuring file systems. It is designed to handle tasks like managing file servers and storage, updating hardware, configuring software, and performing backups.\n

Availability & durability\n

Amazon EFS is designed to be highly available. By default, Amazon EFS is designed to redundantly store file system objects (i.e. directory, file, and link) across multiple Availability Zones (AZs) for file systems using Amazon EFS Standard storage classes. If you select Amazon EFS One Zone storage classes, Amazon EFS is designed to redundantly store your data within a single AZ. Amazon EFS is designed to sustain concurrent device failures by quickly detecting and repairing lost redundancy. In addition, Amazon EFS is designed to enable a file system using Standard storage classes to be accessed concurrently from all AZs in the region where it is located. You can architect your application for failover from one AZ to other AZs in the region. Mount targets are designed to be highly available within an AZ for all Amazon EFS storage classes.\n

Performance and scale\n

Elastic and scalable\n

With Amazon EFS, storage capacity is designed to grow and shrink as you add and remove files, dynamically providing the storage capacity to applications as they need it. Amazon EFS is designed to be highly scalable both in storage capacity and throughput performance. It is designed to allow parallel access from Amazon EC2 instances to your data. Amazon EFS is also designed to deliver file operations with consistent, low latencies.\n

Throughput modes\n

EFS Elastic Throughput mode is designed to help your file system throughput scale with your workload activity.\n

Storage classes\n

Amazon EFS offers Standard and One Zone storage classes for both frequently accessed and infrequently accessed files. The Standard and One Zone storage classes are both designed to deliver consistent low latencies. The Amazon EFS Standard-Infrequent Access (EFS Standard-IA) and Amazon EFS One Zone-Infrequent Access (EFS One Zone-IA) storage classes are intended for files accessed less frequently.\n

Lifecycle management and Intelligent-Tiering\n

With Amazon EFS Lifecycle Management, you can move tier files between storage classes based on your access patterns. You can create a custom lifecycle management policy to transition files between storage classes, or use the default policy which will tier files from EFS Standard to EFS IA after a number of days without access and to EFS Archive after more days without access. You can also enable EFS Intelligent-Tiering to transition files from EFS IA and EFS Archive back to EFS Standard for subsequent access.\n

Accessibility\n

Shared file system with NFS support\n

Amazon EFS is designed to provide access for many connections for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances, as well as AWS container and serverless compute services. Amazon EFS can also simultaneously support on-premises servers using a traditional file permissions model, file locking, and hierarchical directory structure via the NFS protocol. Amazon EC2 instances can access your file system across AZs and Regions while on-premises servers can access via AWS Direct Connect or AWS VPN services.\n

Containers and serverless file storage\n

Amazon EFS is integrated with containers and serverless compute services from AWS that may require shared storage for latency-sensitive, and IOPS-heavy workloads. Amazon EFS is designed to provide applications running on Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS), Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS), AWS Fargate, and AWS Lambda with access to shared file systems for stateful workloads.\n

Data Protection and Security\n

Amazon EFS Replication\n

Amazon EFS Replication is designed to copy your file system data into another file. Organizations may be required to store a secondary copy of their data, hundreds of miles away from the primary, to plan for Disaster Recovery (DR) events. Using EFS Replication, you can perform DR workflows. EFS Replication transfers incremental data to help synchronize your file systems and is designed to provide a recovery point objective (RPO) and a recovery time objective (RTO).\n

AWS Backup\n

Amazon EFS Backups are powered by AWS Backup, which is a managed backup service that manages and backs up your Amazon EFS file systems. AWS Backup is designed to centralize the backup of data across other AWS services in the cloud and on premises.\n

Security and compliance\n

You can manage network access to your file systems using Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) security group rules, and you can manage application access to your file systems using AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies and Amazon EFS Access Points.\n

Encryption\n

Amazon EFS offers you the ability to encrypt data at rest and in transit. Data at rest can be transparently encrypted using encryption keys managed by the AWS Key Management Service (KMS). Encryption of data in transit uses Transport Layer Security (TLS).\n

Data Transfer\n

AWS DataSync\n

AWS DataSync is a managed data transfer service that helps move data between on-premises storage and Amazon EFS. Use DataSync to transfer active datasets over the internet or AWS Direct Connect. Use the service for one-time data migrations, ongoing workflows with periodic synchronization, or replication for data protection and recovery.\n

AWS Transfer Family\n

AWS Transfer Family is designed to provide managed support for file transfers into and out of Amazon EFS.\n

Additional Information\n

For additional information about service controls, security features and functionalities, including, as applicable, information about storing, retrieving, modifying, restricting, and deleting data, please see https://docs.aws.amazon.com/index.html. This additional information does not form part of the Documentation for purposes of the AWS Customer Agreement available at http://aws.amazon.com/agreement, or other agreement between you and AWS governing your use of AWS’s services."},"metadata":{"tags":[]}},{"fields":{"patternHeading":"Amazon EFS Documentation","patternBoolean2":"false","id":"ams#rt-rich-textc2#pattern-data"},"metadata":{"tags":[{"name":"pattern-data","description":"Default pattern data","id":"ams#rt-rich-textc2#pattern-data","namespaceId":"rt-rich-text"}]}}]},"metadata":{"auth":{},"testAttributes":{}},"context":{"page":{"pageUrl":"https://aws.amazon.com/documentation-overview/efs/"},"contentType":"page","environment":{"stage":"prod","region":"us-west-2"},"sdkVersion":"2.0.26"},"refMap":{"manifest.js":"cda3e8d042","rt-rich-text.js":"250c189ff4","rt-rich-text.rtl.css":"42944d6d65","rt-rich-text.css":"a13e2733c8","rt-rich-text.css.js":"3f7a668deb","rt-rich-text.rtl.css.js":"ac23e9ea14"},"settings":{"templateMappings":{"patternHeading":"patternHeading","patternSubheading":"patternSubheading","patternDark":"patternBoolean2","title":"itemHeading","bodyText":"itemLongLoc"}}}

Amazon EFS Documentation

Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) is designed to provide serverless, elastic file storage that lets you share file data without provisioning or managing storage capacity and performance. It can be used with AWS services and on-premises resources, and is designed to scale without disrupting applications.

Managed service

Amazon EFS is a managed service that is designed to provide NFS shared file system storage for Linux workloads. Amazon EFS helps you simplify creating and configuring file systems. It is designed to handle tasks like managing file servers and storage, updating hardware, configuring software, and performing backups.

Availability & durability

Amazon EFS is designed to be highly available. By default, Amazon EFS is designed to redundantly store file system objects (i.e. directory, file, and link) across multiple Availability Zones (AZs) for file systems using Amazon EFS Standard storage classes. If you select Amazon EFS One Zone storage classes, Amazon EFS is designed to redundantly store your data within a single AZ. Amazon EFS is designed to sustain concurrent device failures by quickly detecting and repairing lost redundancy. In addition, Amazon EFS is designed to enable a file system using Standard storage classes to be accessed concurrently from all AZs in the region where it is located. You can architect your application for failover from one AZ to other AZs in the region. Mount targets are designed to be highly available within an AZ for all Amazon EFS storage classes.

Performance and scale

Elastic and scalable

With Amazon EFS, storage capacity is designed to grow and shrink as you add and remove files, dynamically providing the storage capacity to applications as they need it. Amazon EFS is designed to be highly scalable both in storage capacity and throughput performance. It is designed to allow parallel access from Amazon EC2 instances to your data. Amazon EFS is also designed to deliver file operations with consistent, low latencies.

Throughput modes

EFS Elastic Throughput mode is designed to help your file system throughput scale with your workload activity.

Storage classes

Amazon EFS offers Standard and One Zone storage classes for both frequently accessed and infrequently accessed files. The Standard and One Zone storage classes are both designed to deliver consistent low latencies. The Amazon EFS Standard-Infrequent Access (EFS Standard-IA) and Amazon EFS One Zone-Infrequent Access (EFS One Zone-IA) storage classes are intended for files accessed less frequently.

Lifecycle management and Intelligent-Tiering

With Amazon EFS Lifecycle Management, you can move tier files between storage classes based on your access patterns. You can create a custom lifecycle management policy to transition files between storage classes, or use the default policy which will tier files from EFS Standard to EFS IA after a number of days without access and to EFS Archive after more days without access. You can also enable EFS Intelligent-Tiering to transition files from EFS IA and EFS Archive back to EFS Standard for subsequent access.

Accessibility

Shared file system with NFS support

Amazon EFS is designed to provide access for many connections for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances, as well as AWS container and serverless compute services. Amazon EFS can also simultaneously support on-premises servers using a traditional file permissions model, file locking, and hierarchical directory structure via the NFS protocol. Amazon EC2 instances can access your file system across AZs and Regions while on-premises servers can access via AWS Direct Connect or AWS VPN services.

Containers and serverless file storage

Amazon EFS is integrated with containers and serverless compute services from AWS that may require shared storage for latency-sensitive, and IOPS-heavy workloads. Amazon EFS is designed to provide applications running on Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS), Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS), AWS Fargate, and AWS Lambda with access to shared file systems for stateful workloads.

Data Protection and Security

Amazon EFS Replication

Amazon EFS Replication is designed to copy your file system data into another file. Organizations may be required to store a secondary copy of their data, hundreds of miles away from the primary, to plan for Disaster Recovery (DR) events. Using EFS Replication, you can perform DR workflows. EFS Replication transfers incremental data to help synchronize your file systems and is designed to provide a recovery point objective (RPO) and a recovery time objective (RTO).

AWS Backup

Amazon EFS Backups are powered by AWS Backup, which is a managed backup service that manages and backs up your Amazon EFS file systems. AWS Backup is designed to centralize the backup of data across other AWS services in the cloud and on premises.

Security and compliance

You can manage network access to your file systems using Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) security group rules, and you can manage application access to your file systems using AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies and Amazon EFS Access Points.

Encryption

Amazon EFS offers you the ability to encrypt data at rest and in transit. Data at rest can be transparently encrypted using encryption keys managed by the AWS Key Management Service (KMS). Encryption of data in transit uses Transport Layer Security (TLS).

Data Transfer

AWS DataSync

AWS DataSync is a managed data transfer service that helps move data between on-premises storage and Amazon EFS. Use DataSync to transfer active datasets over the internet or AWS Direct Connect. Use the service for one-time data migrations, ongoing workflows with periodic synchronization, or replication for data protection and recovery.

AWS Transfer Family

AWS Transfer Family is designed to provide managed support for file transfers into and out of Amazon EFS.

Additional Information

For additional information about service controls, security features and functionalities, including, as applicable, information about storing, retrieving, modifying, restricting, and deleting data, please see https://docs.aws.amazon.com/index.html. This additional information does not form part of the Documentation for purposes of the AWS Customer Agreement available at http://aws.amazon.com/agreement, or other agreement between you and AWS governing your use of AWS’s services.