EC2 storage typically refers to the various storage options available for use with Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances. There are primarily two types of storage associated with EC2 instances:
- Instance Store Volumes (Ephemeral Storage):
- Instance store volumes are temporary block-level storage that is directly attached to the physical host machine that hosts the EC2 instance.
- These volumes are often referred to as ephemeral storage because they are non-persistent, meaning that the data stored on them is lost when the instance is stopped or terminated.
- Instance store volumes offer high performance and low latency, making them suitable for applications that require high-speed local storage, such as caching or temporary file storage.
- The size and type of instance store volumes vary depending on the instance type, and not all instance types include instance store volumes.
- Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store):
- Amazon EBS provides persistent block-level storage volumes that can be attached to EC2 instances.
- Unlike instance store volumes, EBS volumes are durable and persist beyond the lifetime of the instance. This means that data stored on EBS volumes remains intact even if the associated instance is stopped or terminated.
- EBS volumes offer various volume types optimized for different performance characteristics, including General Purpose SSD (gp2), Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1), Throughput Optimized HDD (st1), Cold HDD (sc1), and Magnetic (standard).
- EBS volumes can be easily resized, and snapshots can be taken to create backups or clone volumes for disaster recovery purposes.
- You can attach multiple EBS volumes to an EC2 instance and configure them for different use cases, such as operating system storage, application data storage, or database storage.
Overall, EC2 storage encompasses both instance store volumes and Amazon EBS volumes, providing users with flexible options for meeting their storage requirements based on performance, durability, and persistence needs.