What is Amazon EBS?
Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) is the standard block storage service for Amazon EC2 instances. EBS volumes behave like physical hard drives or SSDs but offer the flexibility and reliability of the cloud. Each EBS volume automatically replicates within an Availability Zone for 99.99% to 99.999% availability.
Unlike ephemeral Instance Store, EBS volumes persist even after EC2 instance stops or terminations. You can grow volumes live, adjust IOPS, and move between EC2 instances without downtime.
Core Features
- Multiple Volume Types: gp3 for balance, io2 Block Express for extreme performance, st1 for throughput
- Up to 256,000 IOPS: io2 Block Express for latency-critical databases
- Automatic Snapshots: Incremental backups to S3 with Data Lifecycle Manager
- Encryption: AES-256 encryption with AWS KMS without performance impact
- Elastic Volumes: Live adjustment of size, IOPS, and throughput
Typical Use Cases
Database Volumes: EBS is the standard storage solution for relational databases on EC2. For production databases, combine gp3 (smaller workloads) or io2 Block Express (enterprise databases) with automated snapshots.
Boot Volumes: Every EC2 instance requires a root volume. gp3 is the optimal choice here: low cost, sufficient performance, fast boot times.
Container Storage: Kubernetes StatefulSets and ECS tasks with persistent data use EBS via the EBS CSI Driver. EKS clusters automatically provision gp3 volumes via StorageClass.
Benefits
- Persistent data independent of EC2 lifecycle
- Flexible volume types for every workload and budget
- Snapshots enable easy backups and disaster recovery
- Live scaling without downtime with Elastic Volumes
Integration with innFactory
As an AWS Reseller, innFactory supports you with Amazon EBS: storage architecture design, performance optimization, backup strategies, and cost optimization through the right volume type choice.
Available Tiers & Options
gp3 (General Purpose SSD)
- Baseline 3,000 IOPS
- Cost-effective
- Decoupled IOPS and storage
- Max 16,000 IOPS
io2 Block Express
- Up to 256,000 IOPS
- Sub-millisecond latency
- 99.999% durability
- Higher cost
- Only for specific instance types
st1 (Throughput Optimized HDD)
- Low cost
- High throughput (500 MB/s)
- HDD-based, higher latency
- Not bootable
Typical Use Cases
Technical Specifications
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Amazon EBS?
Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) is a high-performance block storage service for Amazon EC2 instances. EBS volumes behave like physical hard drives but offer cloud benefits like snapshots, encryption, and flexible scaling.
Which EBS volume type should I choose?
gp3 is the right choice for most workloads: balanced price-performance, 3,000 IOPS baseline. For databases with high IOPS requirements, use io2 Block Express (up to 256,000 IOPS). For big data with high throughput, choose st1.
How do EBS snapshots work?
EBS snapshots are incremental backups stored in Amazon S3. The first snapshot copies all data, subsequent snapshots only copy changed blocks. You can copy and share snapshots across regions.
Can I attach an EBS volume to multiple EC2 instances?
Yes, with EBS Multi-Attach (available for io2 Block Express). A volume can be attached to up to 16 EC2 instances in the same Availability Zone. This is suitable for cluster applications.