Amazon EFS Infrequent Access

Save up to 92% on file storage

Maximizing operational efficiency and reducing total cost of ownership are common drivers for moving business applications to the cloud.

Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) provides a simple, serverless, set-and-forget elastic file system for use with AWS Cloud services and on-premises resources. Amazon EFS Standard-Infrequent Access (EFS Standard-IA) and Amazon EFS One Zone-Infrequent Access (EFS One Zone-IA) are storage classes that provide price/performance that is cost-optimized for files not accessed every day, with storage prices up to 92% lower compared to Amazon EFS Standard (EFS Standard) and Amazon EFS One Zone (EFS One Zone) storage classes respectively. The EFS Standard-IA storage class costs only $0.025/GB-month1, and the EFS One Zone-IA storage class costs only $0.0133/GB-month2.

Using the industry accepted estimate that 20% of data is actively used and 80% is infrequently accessed, you can store your files on Amazon EFS at an effective price of $0.043/GB-month (20% $0.16/GB-month1 for files stored on EFS One Zone + 80% $0.0133/GB-month1 for files stored on EFS One Zone-IA = $0.043/GB-month)1, or an effective price of $0.08/GB-month (20% $0.30/GB-month2 for files stored on EFS Standard + 80% $0.025/GB-month2 for files stored on to EFS Standard-IA = $0.08/GB-month)2.

To get started with Infrequent Access (IA) storage classes, simply enable Amazon EFS Lifecycle Management for your file system by selecting a lifecycle policy that matches your needs. Amazon EFS will automatically and transparently move your files to the lower cost regional EFS Standard-IA storage class or EFS One Zone-IA storage class based on the last time they were accessed. Amazon EFS transparently serves files from both frequent access storage classes (such as EFS Standard and EFS One Zone) and Infrequent Access (IA) storage classes (such as EFS Standard-IA and EFS One Zone-IA) from a common file system namespace when the lifecycle policy to move files to these storage classes is set. You don't have to worry about which of your files are actively used and which are infrequently accessed. Amazon EFS Intelligent-Tiering offers an additional lifecycle policy that moves files back to EFS Standard or EFS One Zone automatically.

1pricing in US East (N. Virginia) region, assumes 80% of your storage in EFS One Zone-IA
2pricing in US East (N. Virginia) region, assumes 80% of your storage in EFS Standard-IA
Optimize Costs with Amazon EFS Standard-IA - demo (3:04)

Amazon EFS Intelligent-Tiering

EFS Intelligent-Tiering delivers automatic cost savings for workloads with changing access patterns by placing your file data in the appropriate storage class, at the right time, based on file access patterns.

EFS Intelligent-Tiering uses Lifecycle Management to monitor your workload access patterns and automatically transition files that are not accessed for the duration of the lifecycle policy (e.g. 30 days) from either the EFS Standard or EFS One Zone storage class to their corresponding Infrequent Access (IA) storage class (EFS Standard-IA or EFS One Zone-IA). If access patterns change and that data is read from or written to again, Lifecycle Management automatically moves the files back to EFS Standard or EFS One Zone, eliminating the risk of unbounded access charges.

To use EFS Intelligent-Tiering, simply set two lifecycle policies: one to automatically move files to EFS Standard-IA or EFS One Zone-IA and another policy to automatically move files back to EFS Standard or EFS One Zone if accessed.

How it works

Amazon EFS Infrequent access HIW diagram 2X
  1. Create file system
  2. Choose Lifecycle Management file access policy to transition files to infrequent access (1, 7, 14, 30, 60, or 90 days) using the AWS CLI, API, or Amazon EFS Management Console.
  3. Files not accessed according to the lifecycle policy are moved to the EFS Standard-IA or EFS One Zone-IA storage class, depending on whether your file system uses Standard or One Zone storage classes.
  4. Additionally, choose the EFS Lifecycle Management file access policy to transition files to EFS Standard or EFS One Zone if accessed ('On First Access') using the AWS CLI, API, or Amazon EFS Management Console.
  5. Files that are read from or written to the IA storage classes (EFS Standard-IA or EFS One Zone-IA) are moved to EFS Standard or EFS One Zone, depending on whether your file system uses Standard or One Zone storage classes.

Use cases for infrequent access storage classes

Backup & recovery

EFS Standard-IA and EFS One Zone-IA storage classes cost-effectively store file data, with industry-leading availability, security and durability enabling you to meet regulatory retention and compliance needs so your backups are protected and available if needed.

Analytics

Managing massive volumes of big data analytics can be costly and complex for workloads like genomics and geospatial applications. EFS Standard-IA and EFS One Zone-IA storage classes cost-effectively store large amounts of data while providing the same throughput used to scale applications with files stored in EFS Standard and EFS One Zone storage classes. If an analytics job is accessed later, EFS Intelligent-Tiering can automatically move this data to EFS Standard or EFS One Zone storage classes, depending on whether your file system uses Standard or One Zone storage classes.

Document management

Many reporting systems for business applications rely on accessible shared file storage in support of business functions. With EFS Standard-IA and EFS One Zone-IA storage classes, you can easily and cost-effectively store and access files from shared file systems, eliminating the need to manage data to control costs. If reports are accessed later, EFS Intelligent-Tiering can automatically move accessed reports to EFS Standard or EFS One Zone storage classes, depending on whether your file system uses Standard or One Zone storage classes.

Media & content management

Web serving applications and content management systems store and serve media assets for websites, online publications, and archives. These assets become infrequently accessed after a period of time as content ages. You can easily store these infrequently accessed files in lower cost storage like EFS Standard-IA and EFS One Zone-IA storage classes. If any of this content becomes active and is accessed once again, EFS Intelligent-Tiering can automatically move the accessed content to EFS Standard or EFS One Zone, depending on whether your file system uses Standard or One Zone storage classes.

Data science & machine learning

Data science workloads rely on shared file storage to store machine learning training data and inference models. As this data ages you can cost-effectively store it in EFS Standard-IA or EFS One Zone-IA storage classes. If datasets become active once again, EFS Intelligent-Tiering can automatically move this data to EFS Standard or EFS One Zone, depending on whether your file system uses Standard or One Zone storage classes.

What these use cases have in common is they have unknown or changing access patterns. A low activity website becomes active once again, older reports in your document management system are referenced, or your machine learning inference datasets are re-used. Your data may be accessed from infrequent access storage classes (such as EFS Standard-IA or EFS One Zone-IA). If this happens, EFS Intelligent-Tiering can automatically move files to the appropriate storage class, at the right time, based on file access patterns.

Resources

Blogs

Lower your Amazon EFS costs by 47% with One Zone storage classes

Amazon EFS One Zone storage classes are cost-optimized for workloads that do not require the level of availability and durability offered by Amazon EFS Standard storage classes, which store data redundantly across multiple geographically separated Availability Zones.

Read the blog »

Scalable, cloud-native file storage at pennies per GB-month with Amazon EFS

Tens of thousands of customers including T-Mobile, MicroStrategy, HERE, and LoanLogics are storing up to petabytes of data in Amazon EFS, to power use cases such as enterprise applications, large scale analytics, and persistent file storage for modern applications.

Read the blog »

Blogs


Lower your Amazon EFS costs by 47% with One Zone storage classes

Amazon EFS One Zone storage classes are cost-optimized for workloads that do not require the level of availability and durability offered by Amazon EFS Standard storage classes, which store data redundantly across multiple geographically separated Availability Zones.

Read the blog »

Scalable, cloud-native file storage at pennies per GB-month with Amazon EFS

Tens of thousands of customers including T-Mobile, MicroStrategy, HERE, and LoanLogics are storing up to petabytes of data in Amazon EFS, to power use cases such as enterprise applications, large scale analytics, and persistent file storage for modern applications.

Read the blog »
Webinars

Disrupting the economics of file storage with Amazon EFS One Zone storage classes

In this AWS Tech Talk, learn about two Amazon EFS One Zone storage classes that are disrupting the economics of cloud file storage, and paving the way for workloads previously thought to be better served as self-managed file systems. 

Watch the webinar »

Reduce file storage TCO

In this AWS Tech Talk, learn about key use cases for running file-based applications on AWS, common migration approaches for moving your file servers to the AWS Cloud, and AWS file storage capabilities to improve scalability.

Watch the webinar »

Webinars


Disrupting the Economics of File Storage with Amazon EFS One Zone Storage Classes

In this AWS Tech Talk, learn about two Amazon EFS One Zone storage classes that are disrupting the economics of cloud file storage, and paving the way for workloads previously thought to be better served as self-managed file systems. 

Watch the webinar »

Reduce File Storage TCO

In this AWS Tech Talk, learn about key use cases for running file-based applications on AWS, common migration approaches for moving your file servers to the AWS Cloud, and AWS file storage capabilities to improve scalability.

Watch the webinar »
Podcasts & whitepapers

Official AWS Podcast: Amazon EFS One Zone

Explore what Amazon EFS One Zone is, who it’s for, use cases, and how to reduce storage costs by 47% compared to Amazon EFS Standard storage classes, while getting the same features and benefits.

Listen to the podcast »

Load, store, and protect Linux-based NFS workloads in AWS

In this cloud migration guide, learn about moving Linux-based applications that require Network File System (NFS) storage, and how to use Amazon EFS Infrequent Access (EFS IA).

Read the whitepaper »

Podcasts and Whitepapers


Official AWS Podcast: Amazon EFS One Zone

Explore what Amazon EFS One Zone is, who it’s for, use cases, and how to reduce storage costs by 47% compared to Amazon EFS Standard storage classes, while getting the same features and benefits.

Listen to the podcast »

Load, Store, and Protect Linux-based NFS Workloads in AWS

In this cloud migration guide, learn about moving Linux-based applications that require Network File System (NFS) storage, and how to use Amazon EFS Infrequent Access (EFS IA).

Read the whitepaper »
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