How to monitor Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) storage costs

Every organization should be seeking to optimize resource utilization, aiming for the highest efficacy at the lowest possible cost. To make effective data-driven cost optimization decisions, it’s essential to have relevant data, tools for generating reports, and clear documentation on how to do so.

Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) offers serverless, scalable, and fully managed file storage without the need for manual provisioning. Amazon EFS offers storage classes, with unique pricing, that are tailored to specific needs:

• Amazon EFS Standard: Best for workloads requiring top-notch durability and availability.
• Amazon EFS Standard–Infrequent Access (Standard-IA): A lower-cost alternative for less accessed data.
• Amazon EFS One Zone: Suitable for development, analytics, simulations, and backups without the need for Multi-Availability Zone resilience.
• Amazon EFS One Zone–Infrequent Access (EFS One Zone-IA): Provides price/performance that is cost-optimized for files not accessed every day without the requirement for Multi-AZ.

In this post, I walk through the step-by-step process for how to generate Amazon EFS storage reports using AWS Cost Explorer. With the correct selection of Cost Explorer filters, these reports can show the cost incurred by each storage class (including by Region), with other filters applicable as fits your needs. With detailed reports, you can get visibility into storage spend and optimize resource utilization and address potential spending inefficiencies.

Amazon EFS storage report parameters

Here are the four Amazon EFS storage report parameters:

• <Region>-TimedStorage-ByteHrs: The number of GB-hours that the data was stored in EFS Standard storage class.
• <Region>-IATimedStorage-ByteHrs: The number of GB-hours that the data was stored in EFS Standard-Infrequent Access storage class.
• <Region>-TimedStorage-Z-ByteHrs: The number of GB-hours that the data was stored in EFS One Zone storage class.
• <Region>-IATimedStorage-Z-ByteHrs: The number of GB-hours that the data was stored in EFS One Zone-Infrequent Access storage class.

In the following sections, I cover using these parameters to find storage usage in all storage classes and then each storage class individually.

Generating the Amazon EFS storage report for all storage classes

Set the Date Range and Granularity depending on your requirements. Set the Dimension to Service, and Service to Elastic File System.

Figure 1: Reporting parameters for Amazon EFS Storage report (includes all storage classes)

Under Usage Type, filter data using the following parameters and check the Select all box to include the filtered data as part of the report. Then, select Apply.

• -TimedStorage-ByteHrs
• -IATimedStorage-ByteHrs
• -TimedStorage-Z-ByteHrs
• -IATimedStorage-Z-ByteHrs

Here is an example using the -IATimedStorage-Z-ByteHrs filter:

Figure 2: Example of how to select only EFS Standard-Infrequent Access storage class usage

Using the previous parameters, you get the following report (Figure 3), which shows the cost incurred and the data stored in Amazon EFS.

Figure 3: Cost incurred and data stored in Amazon EFS

If you are interested in checking the AWS Region-wise usage, then you can select Usage type under Dimension under Group by as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Group by filter to display AWS Region-wise usage

Using the previous parameters, you get the following report (Figure 5), which will show AWS Region-wise usage.

Figure 5: AWS Region-wise cost incurred and data stored in Amazon EFS

Generating Amazon EFS storage report for data stored in Amazon EFS Standard 

First, set the Date Range and Granularity depending on your requirements. Set the Dimension to Service, and Service to Elastic File System.

Under Usage Type, filter data using the following parameters and check the Select all box to include the filtered data as part of the report. Then, select Apply.

-TimedStorage-ByteHrs

Figure 6: Reporting parameters to report data stored in Amazon EFS Standard storage class

 Using the previous parameters, you get the following report (Figure 7), which shows the cost incurred and the data stored in Amazon EFS Standard storage class.

Figure 7: Cost incurred and data stored in Amazon EFS Standard storage class

If you are interested in checking the AWS Region-wise usage, then you can select Usage type under Dimension under Group by as shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8: Group by filter to display AWS Region-wise usage

Using the previous parameters, you get the following report (Figure 9) which will show AWS Region-wise usage.

Figure 9: AWS Region-wise cost incurred and data stored in Amazon EFS Standard storage class

Generating Amazon EFS storage report for data stored in Amazon EFS Standard-Infrequent Access

Let us set the Date Range and Granularity depending on your requirements. Set the Dimension to Service, and Service to Elastic File System.

Under Usage Type, filter data using the following parameters and check the Select all box to include the filtered data as part of the report. Then, select Apply.

-IATimedStorage-ByteHrs

Figure 10: Reporting parameters to report data stored in Amazon EFS Standard-Infrequent Access storage class

Using the previous parameters, you get the following report (Figure 11), which shows the cost incurred and the data stored in Amazon EFS Standard-Infrequent Access storage class.

Figure 11: Cost incurred and data stored in Amazon EFS Standard-Infrequent Access storage class

If you are interested in checking the AWS Region-wise usage, then you can select Usage type under Dimension under Group by as shown in Figure 12.

Figure 12: Group by filter to display AWS Region-wise usage

Using the previous parameters, you get the following report (Figure 13), which will show AWS Region-wise usage.

Figure 13: AWS Region-wise cost incurred and data stored in Amazon EFS Standard-Infrequent Access storage class 

Generating Amazon EFS storage report for data stored in Amazon EFS One Zone

Set the Date Range and Granularity depending on your requirements. Set the Dimension to Service, and Service to Elastic File System.

Under Usage Type, filter data using the following parameters and check the Select all box to include the filtered data as part of the report. Then, select Apply.

-TimedStorage-Z-ByteHrs

Figure 14: Reporting parameters to report data stored in Amazon EFS One Zone storage class

Using the previous parameters, you get the following report (Figure 15), which shows the cost incurred and the data stored in Amazon EFS One Zone storage class.

Figure 15: Cost incurred and data stored in Amazon EFS One Zone storage class

If you are interested in checking the AWS Region-wise usage, then you can select Usage type under Dimension under Group by as shown in Figure 16.

Figure 16: Group by filter to display AWS Region-wise usage

Using the previous parameters, you get the following report (Figure 17), which will show AWS Region-wise usage.

Figure 17: AWS Region-wise cost incurred and data stored in Amazon EFS One Zone storage class

Generating Amazon EFS storage report for data stored in Amazon EFS One Zone-Infrequent Access

Set the Date Range and Granularity depending on your requirements. Set the Dimension to Service, and Service to Elastic File System.

Under Usage Type, filter data using the following parameters and check the Select all box to include the filtered data as part of the report. Then, select Apply.

-IATimedStorage-Z-ByteHrs

Figure 18: Reporting parameters to report data stored in Amazon EFS One Zone-Infrequent Access storage class

 Using the previous parameters, you get the following report (Figure 19), which shows the cost incurred and the data stored in the Amazon EFS One Zone-Infrequent Access storage class.

Figure 19: Cost incurred and data stored in Amazon EFS One Zone-Infrequent Access storage class

If you are interested in checking the AWS Region-wise usage, then you can select Usage type under Dimension under Group by as shown in Figure 20.

Figure 20: Group by filter to display AWS Region-wise usage

Using the previous parameters, you get the following report (Figure 21), which will show AWS Region-wise usage.

Figure 21: AWS Region-wise cost incurred and data stored in Amazon EFS One Zone-Infrequent Access storage class

Downloading Amazon EFS storage cost and usage breakdown data

For the any of the reports you generate, you see an option Download as csv.

Select Download as csv to download the Amazon EFS storage cost and usage breakdown data for analysis.

Figure 22: Download option to download Amazon EFS cost and usage breakdown data

Conclusion

In this blog post, I showed which filters you need to choose in AWS Cost Explorer to generate Amazon EFS storage reports to monitor your storage costs. I also demonstrated how you can generate Amazon EFS storage reports and display the amount of data stored in different storage classes and the cost incurred in each storage class. I also demonstrated filtering by Region. With detailed reports, you can get visibility into storage spend and optimize resource utilization and address potential spending inefficiencies.

Thanks for reading this blog post and now you can generate Amazon EFS storage reports. To get started try using AWS Cost Explorer to make more effective data driven decisions designed to help you to save Amazon EFS storage costs. If you have any comments, questions, or feedback, leave a comment in the comments section below.