5.59 Difference between EBS volume and instance store

Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides two types of storage options for its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances: Elastic Block Store (EBS) volumes and instance store. Understanding the differences between these two storage options is important for choosing the right storage option for your workload.

EBS volumes are network-attached storage devices that can be attached to EC2 instances. They provide persistent storage and can be detached from one EC2 instance and attached to another. EBS volumes are stored on network-attached storage, which means they are more durable and reliable than instance store volumes. EBS volumes are ideal for workloads that require persistent storage, such as databases and file systems.

On the other hand, instance store is ephemeral storage that is directly attached to the EC2 instance. Instance store volumes are not persistent and are lost when the EC2 instance is stopped or terminated. Instance store volumes are ideal for workloads that do not require persistent storage, such as temporary data and cache storage.

In terms of performance, EBS volumes offer consistent and predictable performance, while instance store volumes offer high I/O performance, but their performance is not consistent and can vary based on the instance type. Additionally, EBS volumes can be encrypted for added security, while instance store volumes cannot be encrypted.

In summary, EBS volumes are ideal for workloads that require persistent storage and consistent performance, while instance store volumes are ideal for workloads that do not require persistent storage and require high I/O performance. Understanding the differences between these two storage options is crucial for choosing the right storage option for your workload on AWS.