AWS Storage: Benefits, Types, & More

‍​​Storing massive amounts of data securely can feel overwhelming, especially concerning data management and potential security breaches. Handling diverse data types and keeping up with scalability needs make traditional storage solutions often fall short. But don’t worry—AWS Storage is here to help! How? Read on to explore.

As businesses dive deeper into data-driven insights, having a reliable and adaptable storage solution becomes crucial. AWS Storage offers a variety of options tailored to different needs, from simple file storage to complex data management systems. With its flexible design and advanced features, AWS Storage not only keeps your data safe but also makes it easy to access and manage.

In this article, we’ll help you understand what AWS Storage is, uncovering its key benefits, and different service types. We’ll also help you choose the best storage option to enhance your data management strategy.

What Is AWS Storage?

Think of AWS storage as your cloud-based solution for all things data. It includes a suite of services from Amazon Web Services that offer scalable, durable, and secure storage. Whether you’re managing active data or archiving long-term records, AWS Storage has you covered. With its high availability, reliability, and flexible pay-as-you-go pricing, it’s designed to make data storage efficient and cost-effective for businesses of all sizes.

How Does AWS Storage Work?

AWS storage maintains large data centers that enable users to seamlessly organize, manage, and store large volumes of data in a secure, centralized location. But how can one access or interact with the stored data? Data can be accessed either through a public internet connection or via a dedicated private network using a browser, web portal, or API. This gives you the flexibility to access the data anywhere and anytime, be it in the office, at home, or on the move. 

Note: You can also adjust (increase or decrease) the storage space as needed and only pay for what you use. 

After going through the definition and how it works, you might as well be interested in learning about the benefits it offers. So, let's quickly explore them.

Benefits Of Using AWS Storage

Listed below are some benefits that you can avail by opting for AWS storage:

1. Gives You Quick Access to Storage: You can get the storage space you need instantly. Instead of waiting weeks for hardware setup or capacity planning, AWS allows you to set up storage resources within minutes. This agility helps organizations deploy applications and their data faster and respond seamlessly to changing operational demands without delays.
2. Scales To Meet Your Storage Needs: AWS Storage automatically scales to meet your growing data needs without manual intervention, making them ideal for small-scale projects to massive data lakes.
3. Opens Up Cost Savings Opportunities: AWS helps reduce the total cost of owning and managing storage infrastructure. This means that by using AWS storage, organizations can avoid the expenses associated with maintaining physical hardware. On top of it, AWS allows you to optimize storage costs by paying only for the storage you use and adjusting capacity as needed.
4. Maintains Data Security & Reliability: AWS implements security measures to protect your data from unauthorized access, ensuring its confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The storage infrastructure is designed for high durability, which means your data is stored across multiple data centers (Availability Zones) redundantly. This minimizes the risk of data loss in case of hardware failures or disasters.
5. Integrates Seamlessly  With Different AWS Services & Third-Party Storage Solutions: AWS storage is designed to integrate smoothly with various other AWS services and third-party solutions. This integration allows organizations to build storage solutions that can be customized to meet specific requirements. This means organizations can customize how they store and manage data and ensure that their storage solutions align closely with their operational needs.

Now that you are familiar with the benefits of AWS storage services, you may want to take advantage of them. To do so, you first need to explore the available AWS storage options and select the one that best suits your needs. But what types of AWS storage are available? And How to choose the right one? Here's how.

4 Different Types Of AWS Storage

Below, we have discussed the 4 AWS storage types available as options. These insights will help you better understand their differences, which will further make it easier for you to decide which one to choose.

1. Amazon S3

Amazon S3, also known as Amazon simple storage service, is one of AWS's oldest and most reliable storage solutions. This object storage service is specially designed to store large amounts of data efficiently and can scale easily to accommodate varying storage needs. You can store and retrieve any amount of data, whether it's large files or smaller pieces of information, from anywhere with just internet access.

Key Features

Here are the key capabilities of Amazon S3.

• Help With Write Once Read Many (WORM) Operation: S3 is great for storing data that you write once and read many times, like backups or archival storage. This feature makes it ideal for securely storing large volumes of data that may not need to be accessed regularly but must remain accessible when required.
• Expand Its Storage Capacity When Required: S3 can store as much data as you need, and it grows with your storage requirements without needing initial planning.
• Durable & Reliable: S3 keeps data safe by storing it in multiple places within a region, ensuring it's always easily available. It's also designed to withstand the failure of two separate data centers or facilities simultaneously without affecting access to stored data.
• Cost-Effective: S3 offers affordable storage options with different classes like Standard, Intelligent-Tiering, Glacier, and Glacier Deep Archive. You can pick the right class based on how often you access your data and your budget.

Use Cases

Mentioned below are a few use cases of Amazon S3.

• Amazon S3 is commonly used to store backups of important data. It ensures that these backups are safe and accessible whenever they are needed.
• Amazon S3 acts as a storage hub for content delivery networks (CDNs) like Amazon CloudFront. This setup allows for easy content distribution to users worldwide.
• Amazon S3 is suitable for long-term data archiving. This capability is particularly useful when you need access to all data for auditing purposes (from time to time). It makes it easier to adhere to legal obligations and maintain the integrity and availability of archived data over time. 

2. Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS)

Amazon EBS offers persistent block-level storage volumes designed for EC2 instances. These volumes are developed to deliver high-performance storage capabilities, making them suitable for applications requiring quick data access with minimal delay.

Key Features

Here are the key capabilities of Amazon EBS.

• Maintains Data Persistently: EBS volumes maintain your data persistently, ensuring it remains available even if your EC2 instance is stopped or terminated.

• Snapshots & Point-In-Time Recovery Feature: EBS lets you take point-in-time snapshots of your volumes at specific times, which serves as a backup. These snapshots enable you to restore volumes or create new ones in different regions as needed.

• Replicates Data in Availability Zone (AZ): EBS replicates data within the same Availability Zone (datacenter) to ensure your data is durable and easily accessible. Also, volumes can be attached to one EC2 instance in the same AZ. This attachment allows the EC2 instance to access the data stored on the EBS volume as if it were a local hard drive.

Use Cases

Mentioned below are a few use cases of Amazon EBS.

• EBS is often used to store databases like MySQL, Oracle, and SQL Server. Because it provides storage that responds quickly with minimal delay (low latency) and performs well under demanding conditions (high performance), which helps databases operate smoothly.
• EBS volumes work well for hosting applications needing permanent storage, like web servers, app servers, and file servers. They offer dependable and expandable storage for app data.
• With EBS snapshots and the option to restore volumes from snapshots, you can set up strong disaster recovery plans for crucial systems and data.

3. Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)

Amazon EFS is a flexible and fully managed service for storing files that can be accessed by multiple EC2 instances at once. It automatically adjusts its storage capacity based on your needs and is accessible from multiple availability zones within AWS regions, ensuring reliability and availability. Furthermore, you can use the Amazon console or command-line interface (CLI) to set up this storage solution. 

Note: EFS supports NFSv4 and NFSv4.1 (network file system versions). This makes EFS compatible with integrating various applications and systems that use NFS for file sharing and access.

Key Features

Here are the key capabilities of Amazon EFS.

• Offers Shared File System: EFS enables multiple EC2 instances to access the same file system at once. This makes it ideal for applications needing shared access like content management systems and media processing workflows.

• Scales Storage Capacity: EFS automatically scales to manage growing storage needs. This feature helps it maintain consistent performance regardless of how much data is stored or how many users are accessing it concurrently.

• Cross-AZ Availability Feature: EFS replicates data across multiple Availability Zones (AZs) within a region, ensuring data remains available even if one AZ experiences issues.

• Connects to On-Premises Servers: EFS supports connecting its file systems to on-premises servers via VPN or DirectConnect. This feature enables organizations to create hybrid setups.

Use Cases

Mentioned below are a few use cases of Amazon EFS.

• EFS is well-suited for hosting platforms like WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla, where multiple EC2 instances need to access shared files and media assets. This ensures consistent access and management of content across the instances.
• EFS can serve as a shared file system for big data processing and analytics tools such as Hadoop and Spark. It allows multiple computing instances to access and process large datasets concurrently, facilitating efficient data analysis.
• In containerized environments like Amazon ECS or Kubernetes (EKS), EFS is suitable for sharing configuration files and storage resources across multiple containers running on different instances. This capability ensures consistent access to shared data and configurations, supporting scalable and flexible deployment of containerized applications.

4. Amazon Glacier

Amazon Glacier is mainly used to store data that needs to be kept for a long time or archived. It's cost-effective because retrieving data from AWS Glacier happens less often, which keeps costs low. You can directly search and access data stored in Glacier, and you only pay when you retrieve data, even if it's just for a short period, like minutes or hours. It aims to replace old-fashioned tape-based backups that were used in offices with a storage solution that is more affordable and durable.

Key Features

Here are the key capabilities of Amazon Glacier.

• Encryption Feature: Glacier safeguards stored data through encryption (Encryption ensures that data is encoded in such a way that it can only be accessed or read by authorized users or systems). Glacier's encryption capabilities ensure that data remains secure both while stored and during transmission, providing peace of mind to organizations storing valuable or confidential data over long periods.

• 99.999999999% Archiving Durability: Data stored in Glacier is highly durable and has a minimal risk of being lost. The data stored in Glacier will remain intact and accessible over time. This high durability ensures that even with occasional hardware failures or disasters, the data remains safe and accessible.

• Purpose-Built Storage Classes: Glacier offers different storage classes that can be customized to meet specific use cases and access requirements. For example, Glacier has storage classes like Glacier Deep Archive for data that is rarely accessed and Glacier for data that is accessed more frequently but still infrequently compared to other storage types. These purpose-built storage classes allow organizations to choose the most cost-effective option based on their data storage and retrieval needs.

Use Cases

Mentioned below are a few use cases of Amazon Glacier.

• Glacier supports healthcare providers in meeting regulatory requirements by securely and economically archiving patient records.
• Government agencies and libraries can opt for Glacier to preserve digital assets effectively for a longer duration.
• Glacier offers a cost-effective solution for storing large media files like videos, which typically require substantial storage space over extended periods. It allows organizations to manage their media assets economically, ensuring they remain securely archived while minimizing storage costs.

After going through AWS storage options, you may get confused about which one to choose or which is better for your organization's needs. So, to make the best choice, you need to consider different key factors. What are these key considerations? Let's find out.

How To Choose The Right AWS Storage?

Different organizations have different storage needs, so one needs to precisely choose the AWS cloud storage service that closely matches the requirements. However, this can sometimes be challenging, as you may not fully understand your needs until you start using the storage solution. 

So, to save you time and help you make an informed decision, we've outlined a few key factors to consider when selecting the ideal storage service.

1. Evaluate Performance Needs: Evaluating each AWS storage’s performance capabilities is crucial based on factors such as Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS), throughput, latency, and scalability. For example, if your premises application demands low-latency and persistent access to data, Amazon EBS is the suitable choice. It provides dedicated storage volumes that are fast and reliable, making it ideal for databases and systems requiring quick response times. And for applications that involve high-throughput file storage, Amazon EFS is worth considering.

2. Examine The Durability & Availability Requirements: You need to thoroughly examine the AWS storage durability and availability capabilities. For instance, if you require a high durable service then Amazon S3 has an impressive durability rating of 99.999999999%, meaning that stored data is highly resilient against loss or corruption. 

3. Check Out The Costs: Look into how much you'll pay based on how much data you store, the type of storage you use, how much data you move around, and any extra features you might need. Compare pricing plans and figure out how much you might end up paying. Also, it's important to think about both the upfront costs and what you'll pay over time. For instance, Glacier Deep Archive is the least expensive/ cheaper storage option on Amazon web service, but costs can go up a lot if you access your data frequently. 

4. Security & Compliance Consideration: All AWS storage typically includes safety features such as encryption for data at rest and in transit, access controls, and certifications to meet compliance requirements. So, choose a service that aligns with your data's specific security needs and helps you adhere to your desired compliance standards.

5. Assess Whether your Storage Requirements will grow over time: Ensure that the storage service you choose can expand smoothly without causing interruptions. For instance, if you want elasticity and scalability features that can adapt to evolving storage demands, then you can opt for Amazon S3. 

In addition, you can check out the customer’s reviews and ratings, take advantage of free trials to better understand its functionality, or conduct a small-scale proof of concept (POC) or pilot project to assess its suitability and performance firsthand.

However, since you are considering to opt for storage services, you also need to understand the importance of monitoring and optimizing storage. But why? Here’s why.

Control Cloud Storage Cost By Effectively Monitoring Storage 

As per Virtana’s research, 94% of IT leaders have noticed that cloud storage costs are increasing, and 54% say that these costs are growing even faster than overall cloud expenses. But you may wonder what the reason behind this rising cost is. Well, organizations face multiple cloud storage challenges, for instance:

Challenge 1: Provisioning Far More Storage Capacity Than Required

Organizations tend to get more data storage space than they need. This is because they want to avoid running out of space and have the flexibility to accommodate unexpected data surges. However, this strategy also has a downside. 

The cost of maintaining unused storage can accumulate quickly, leading to rising cloud storage bills. Over time, these expenses can add up to millions of dollars annually, putting financial burden on the organization. 

Moreover, by paying for storage space that is not being utilized, companies are basically wasting resources that could be better allocated elsewhere.

Challenge 2: Manually Scaling Storage

When dealing with large storage spaces and databases, manually increasing and decreasing storage capacity can be inefficient. But why? 

• Manually monitoring and adjusting storage can be labor-intensive and time-consuming. IT teams need to review large databases to determine whether they need allocated space. 
• Also, there is a high chance of mistakes while manually adjusting storage capacity, and IT teams may end up over-provisioning storage (wasting money) or under-provisioning storage (causing data shortages). 
• On top of it, manual scaling can be slower and less responsive to sudden changes in demand.

Challenge 3: Cloud Provider’s Shrinking Capabilities Just Don’t Work Any Better

Cloud providers do not offer a built-in feature to reduce storage space directly. Instead, they downsize by moving the data to a smaller storage instance, which causes some service interruption or downtime. 

However, the rising cost of cloud storage can be controlled with the help of the right solution, i.e., Lucidity. Now, what is Lucidity? How will it help control the expense?

Lucidity is an automated solution featuring an intelligent auto-scaling engine that transforms the way you manage your cloud storage. It adjusts storage resources dynamically to meet real-time needs, eliminating the inefficiencies of over-provisioning, simplifying management, and ensuring your applications always have the necessary storage for optimal performance.

Basically, Lucidity acts as a "No-Ops" layer. This means it reduces workload while ensuring you drive the maximum value from your cloud storage investments.

To help you understand better how its auto-scaling engine works, here’s a breakdown of its key capabilities 

• Continuously Monitor Cloud Storage Usage Patterns: Lucidity thoroughly and regularly assesses your cloud storage usage and access patterns. It also gathers real-time insights that help you understand your storage's actual needs. 
• Intelligently Right-Sizes Your Storage Capacity: Lucidity's algorithms intelligently decide when to scale up or down your storage capacity. Like when usage rises, it expands storage seamlessly to support applications. Similarly, when usage decreases, Lucidity reduces storage allocation to prevent wastage.
• Makes Sure You Face Zero Downtime: Lucidity makes sure to make all the adjustments without affecting your apps and data. This ensures continuous availability and smooth operation, maintaining uptime and user accessibility without interruptions. 

The best part is that it also ensures to save upto 70% on your cloud block storage bill by eliminating over-provisioning. This means you can save millions of dollars annually that would otherwise be drained due to unnecessary storage costs.

Effortlessly Scale Storage with AWS Storage

In conclusion, AWS storage offers a variety of storage solutions — S3, EBS, EFS, and Glacier, that cater to different business needs. They provide flexible and scalable options that can adapt to changing data requirements. Not only that, with AWS storage, organizations can also benefit from strong security features, reliable data durability, and cost-effective storage solutions that match their specific needs. So, whether you need scalable storage for applications or high-performance storage for databases, AWS has the storage solution to help manage data effectively in the cloud. Along with AWS, you can also consider deploying Lucidity to effectively control the rising cloud storage costs.