Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) is designed to provide serverless, fully elastic file storage that helps you share file data without provisioning or managing storage capacity and performance. There is no minimum fee or setup charge. You pay only for the storage you use, for read and write access to data stored in Infrequent Access storage classes, for read and write access using Elastic Throughput, and for any Provisioned Throughput.
Amazon EFS offers four storage classes: two standard storage classes, including Amazon EFS Standard and Amazon EFS Standard-Infrequent Access (EFS Standard-IA), and two One Zone storage classes, including Amazon EFS One Zone and Amazon EFS One Zone-Infrequent Access (EFS One Zone-IA).
EFS offers price advantages over many self-managed cloud alternatives. For more information on how much you can save, see the EFS Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) example here.
Effective storage pricing for file systems using Lifecycle Management (select regions)
| Regions | Effective storage price ($/GB-Mo) - One Zone* | Effective storage price ($/GB-Mo) - Standard** |
| US East (N. Virginia) | $0.043 | $0.08 |
| US West (Oregon) | $0.043 | $0.08 |
| Africa (Cape Town) | $0.054 | $0.10 |
| Asia Pacific (Seoul) | $0.047 | $0.09 |
| Canada (Central) | $0.047 | $0.09 |
| Europe (Ireland) | $0.046 | $0.09 |
| AWS GovCloud (US-East) | $0.056 | $0.11 |
*Assumes 80% of data infrequently accessed and stored in EFS One Zone-IA
AWS Free Tier
As part of the AWS Free Tier, you can get started with EFS for free. Upon sign-up, new AWS customers receive 5 GB of EFS storage in the EFS Standard storage class for 12 months. The AWS Free Tier is not applicable to files stored in the EFS One Zone storage class.
Your usage for the Free Tier is calculated each month across all AWS Regions except the AWS GovCloud Region and automatically applied to your bill; unused monthly usage will not roll over. Restrictions apply; see offer terms for more details.
Pricing table
Within your first 12 months on AWS, you can use up to 5 GB/month on the EFS Standard storage class at no charge.
Amazon EFS replication
Use EFS Replication to replicate your file system to a Region or AZ of your choice without having to manage additional infrastructure or custom processes. In the destination Region, you pay for storage and any applicable read/write data access charges in EFS Infrequent Access storage classes when EFS Lifecycle Management is enabled. EFS will copy its data to a destination file system in the AWS Region of your choice. For replication across Regions, you pay for inter-Region Data Transfer OUT charges to the destination Region. For same Region replication of file systems in EFS One Zone-Standard and EFS One Zone-IA storage classes across AZs, you pay for data transferred “out” from the source AZ. For more information, refer to Data Transfer and Data Transfer within the same AWS Region within Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) On-Demand Pricing.
EFS Replication is available in AWS Regions: US East (Ohio), US East (N. Virginia), US West (N. California), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Asia Pacific (Osaka), Asia Pacific (Seoul), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Canada (Central), Europe (Frankfurt), Europe (Ireland), Europe (London), Europe (Paris), Europe (Stockholm), South America (São Paulo), and AWS GovCloud Regions.
Pricing examples
The storage amount billed in a month is based on the average storage space used throughout the month. Your storage usage is measured in "GB-Month," which are added up at the end of the month to generate your monthly charges. These pricing examples assume 20 percent of your data is stored in a storage class meant for frequently accessed data (for example, EFS Standard or EFS One Zone) and 80 percent is stored in an infrequent access storage class (for example, EFS Standard-IA or EFS One Zone-IA), following industry-accepted estimates.
The throughput amount billed in a month is based on the average throughput provisioned in excess of what your EFS Standard storage allows for the month. Your throughput is measured in "MB/s-Month," which are added up at the end of the month to generate your monthly charges.
Example 1:
Assume that your file system is located in the US East (N. Virginia) Region, uses 100 GB of EFS One Zone storage, and uses 400 GB of EFS One Zone-IA storage for the entirety of a 31-day month. At the end of the month, you would have the following usage in GB-Hours:
Total EFS One Zone usage (GB-Hours): 100 GB x 31 days x (24 hours / day) = 74,400 GB-Hours
Total EFS One Zone-IA usage (GB-Hours): 400 GB x 31 days x (24 hours / day) = 297,600 GB-Hours
We add up GB-Hours and convert to GB-Month to calculate monthly charges:
Total EFS One Zone storage charge: 74,400 GB-Hours x (1 month / 744 hours) x $0.16/GB-month = $16
Total EFS One Zone-IA storage charge: 297,600 GB-Hours x (1 month / 744 hours) x $0.0133 /GB-month = $5.32
Total Monthly Storage Charge: $16 + $5.32 = $21.32 or $0.043/GB-month
Example 2:
Assume that your file system is located in the US East (N. Virginia) Region, uses 100 GB of EFS Standard storage, and uses 400 GB of EFS Standard-IA storage for the entirety of a 31-day month. At the end of the month, you would have the following usage in GB-Hours:
Total EFS Standard usage (GB-Hours): 100 GB x 31 days x (24 hours / day) = 74,400 GB-Hours
Total EFS Standard-IA usage (GB-Hours): 400 GB x 31 days x (24 hours / day) = 297,600 GB-Hours
We add up GB-Hours and convert to GB-Month to calculate monthly charges:
Total EFS Standard storage charge: 74,400 GB-Hours x (1 month / 744 hours) x $0.30/GB-month = $30.00
Total EFS Standard-IA storage charge: 297,600 GB-Hours x (1 month / 744 hours) x $0.025/GB-month = $10.00
Total Monthly Storage Charge: $30.00 + $10.00 = $40.00 or $.08/GB-month
Example 3:
This example compares two scenarios that assume you store 100 GB on EFS Standard and 400 GB on EFS Standard-IA in the US East (N. Virginia) Region. In the first scenario, you select the default Bursting Throughput mode, and in the second scenario, you configure 10 MB/s of Provisioned Throughput. You would be entitled to a baseline throughput of 5 MB/s in both scenarios because you are storing 100 GB of data on EFS Standard.
Default Bursting Throughput: 100 GB of data in EFS Standard and 400 GB of data in EFS Standard-IA, using the default Bursting Throughput mode
Total monthly storage charge (as above): $40.00
Provisioned Throughput: 100 GB of data in EFS Standard and 400 GB of data in EFS Standard-IA, with 10 MB/s of Provisioned Throughput
Total monthly storage charge (see above calculations): $40.00
Default throughput (MB/s-Hours) = (74,400 GB-Hours / 20 GB-Hours) * 1 MB/s-Hour = 3,720 MB/s-Hours
Total provisioned throughput (MB/s-Hours) = 10 MB/s x 31 x 24 hours/day = 7,440 MB/s-Hours
Total billable provisioned throughput (MB/s-Hours) = 7,440 MB/s-Hours – 3,720 MB/s-Hours =3,720 MB/s-Hours
Total billable provisioned throughput (MB/s-Month) = 3,720 MB/s-Hours / (31 days/month x 24 hours/day) = 5 MB/s-Month
Total monthly Provisioned Throughput charge = 5 MB/s-Month x 6.00 = $30.00
Total monthly charge = Total monthly storage charge + Total monthly throughput charge =$40.00 + $30.00 = $70.00
Example 4:
The following example reflects a scenario where your file access patterns change over time, and includes each of EFS Standard-IA's pricing dimensions. The example assumes that the two EFS Lifecycle policies to move files between EFS Standard and EFS Standard-IA are set.
Assume that your file system is located in the US East (N. Virginia) Region. At the beginning of a 31-day month, your file system stores 1 TB of files on EFS Standard. On the 15th day of the month, EFS Lifecycle Management moves 80% of your files to the EFS Standard-IA storage class after 14 days of having not been accessed. Once your infrequently accessed files move to EFS Standard-IA, 10 different clients read them all in full once per month. The 800 GB of files read are moved to EFS Standard storage class.
First, we calculate the pro-rated storage usage:
1 TB of EFS Standard storage for 14 days (GB-Hours): 1,000 GB x 14 days x (24 hours / day) = 336,000 GB-Hours
200 GB of EFS Standard storage for 17 days (GB-Hours): 200 GB x 17 days x (24 hours / day) = 81,600 GB-Hours
Total EFS Standard storage usage (GB-Hours): 336,000 GB-Hours + 81,600 GB-Hours = 417,600 GB-Hours
800 GB of EFS Standard-IA storage for 17 days (GB-Hours): 800 GB x 17 x (24 hours / day) = 326,400 GB-Hours
Next, we convert the storage usage into GB-months and calculate the storage charge:
Total EFS Standard storage charge: 417,600 GB-Hours x (1 month / 744 hours) x $0.30/GB-month = $168.39
Total EFS Standard-IA storage charge: 326,400 GB-Hours x (1 month / 744 hours) x $0.025/GB-month = $10.97
Total EFS storage charge: $168.39 + $10.97 = $179.36
Next, we calculate the access charges for files in EFS Standard-IA:
Finally, we calculate the total EFS charge for the month:
Total monthly charges = Total storage charge + Total access charge = $179.36 + $16 = $195.36
Example 5:
This example reflects a scenario where you are replicating file systems across Regions using EFS Replication. The example is focused on costs directly related to EFS Replication.
Assume you have an EFS file system in the US East (North Virginia) Region with 1 TB of data. 200 GB of this data resides in the EFS Standard storage class and 800 GB in the EFS Standard-IA storage class. This file system is being replicated to the US West (Oregon) Region. Assume the destination file system uses a 7-day EFS Lifecycle Management Policy to move files into the EFS Standard-IA storage class.
When replication is first turned on, the entire source file system is copied to the destination file system. The replicated data will first land in the EFS Standard storage class in the destination file system. If files aren’t accessed for the duration of the EFS Lifecycle Management policy (7 days), they will move to the EFS Standard-IA storage class.
Initial sync:
First, we calculate the pro-rated storage usage for the destination file system:
Total EFS Standard usage (GB-hours): 1,000 GB * 7 days * (24 hours / day) = 168,000 GB-hours
Total EFS Standard-IA usage (GB-hours): 1,000 GB * 24 days * (24 hours / day / 31-day month) = 576,000 GB-hours
Next, we convert the storage usage into GB-months and calculate the storage charge for the destination file system:
Total EFS Standard storage charge: 168,000 * (1 month / 744 hours) * $0.30/GB-month = $67.74
Total EFS Standard-IA storage charge: 576,000 * (1 month / 744 hours) * $0.025/GB-month = $19.36
Data transfer charges for the source file system initial replication will be:
The data transfer charges for the initial sync of the source file system will be:
Total EFS Replication data transfer charges for 1 TB of data: 1,000 GB * $0.02/GB = $20.00
Total data transfer charges for initial sync between US East (N. Virginia) Region and US West (Oregon) Region = $20.00
Total charges for initial sync = Total storage charges for initial sync + Total data transfer charges for initial sync = $87.10 + $20.00 = $107.10
Incremental replication:
Consider that the source file systems add 150 GB of new data after 7 days. The new data will be replicated to the destination file system and will reside in the EFS Standard storage class for 7 days based on the Lifecycle Management Policy as before. The pro-rated storage usage for 150 GB of new data is calculated as follows:
Total EFS Standard usage (GB-hours): 150 GB * 7 days * (24 hours / day) = 25,200 GB-hours
Total EFS Standard-IA usage (GB-hours): 150 GB * 17 days * (24 hours / day) = 61,200 GB-hours
Next, we convert the storage usage into GB-months and calculate the storage charge for the 150 GB of new data added to the destination file system:
Total EFS Standard storage charge: 25,200 * (1 month / 744 hours) * $0.30/GB-month = $10.16
Total EFS Standard-IA storage charge: 61,200 * (1 month / 744 hours) * $0.025/GB-month = $2.06
Total storage charges for incremental replication = $10.16 + $2.06 = $12.22
Lastly, we calculate the data transfer charges for 150 GB of incremental data:
Total EFS Replication data transfer charges: 150 GB * $0.02/GB = $3.00
Total data transfer charges for incremental replication of data between US East (N. Virginia) Region and US West (Oregon) Region = $3.00
Total charges for incremental replication = Total storage charges for incremental replication + Total data transfer charges for incremental replication = $12.22 + $3.00 = $15.22
Total charges related to EFS Replication = Total charges for initial sync + Total charges for incremental replication = $107.10 + $15.22 = $122.32
Example 6:
Assume you are running a machine learning (ML) workload on Amazon EFS. Assume your file system is located in the US East (N. Virginia) Region and has 500 GB of data, with 100 GB of EFS Standard storage and 400GB of EFS Standard-Infrequent Access storage, for the entirety of a 31-day month. Because you don't want this spiky ML workload to be throughput constrained, you have enabled Elastic throughput mode on your file system. Assume that your ML inference workload has 75% reads, drives a peak throughput of 50 MB/s for 3 hours a day and 3 days a week, and is idle for the remainder of the time.
Total monthly storage charge
At the end of the month, you would have the following usage in GB-hours:
Total EFS Standard usage (GB-hours): 100 GB x 31 days x (24 hours / day) = 74,400 GB-hours
Total EFS Standard-IA usage (GB-hours): 400 GB x 31 days x (24 hours / day) = 297,600 GB-hours
We add up GB-hours and convert to GB-month to calculate monthly charges:
Total EFS Standard storage charge: 74,400 GB-hours x (1 month / 744 hours) x $0.30/GB-month = $30.00
Total EFS Standard-IA storage charge: 297,600 GB-hours x (1 month / 744 hours) x $0.025/GB-month = $10.00
Total Monthly Storage Charge: $30.00 + $10.00 = $40.00 or $0.08/GB-month
Total monthly Elastic Throughput charge
Assuming all of your data transferred is to EFS Standard Storage, at the end of the month, you would have the following usage in GB:
Total Elastic Throughput Data (GB) in the month: 50 MB/s x (60 minutes x 60 seconds x 3 hours) x 3 days x 4 weeks/1000 = 6,480 GB
Total Elastic Throughput Read Data (GB): 75% x 6,480 GB = 4,860 GB
Total Elastic Throughput Write Data (GB): 25% x 6,480 GB = 1,620 GB
We then calculate the total monthly charges for Elastic Throughput:
Elastic Throughout Read Data charges: 4,860 GB x $0.03/GB = $145.80
Elastic Throughout Write Data charges: 1,620 GB x $0.06/GB = $97.20
We then calculate the total monthly charges for Elastic Throughput:
Total Monthly Throughput Charge = $145.80 + $97.20 = $243.00
Finally, we calculate the total EFS charge for the month:
Total monthly charges = Total storage charge + Total throughput charge = $40.00 + $243.00 = $283.00
Data transfer
Moving your EFS file data can be managed simply with AWS DataSync.
AWS DataSync
To simplify and accelerate data transfers in and out of EFS, you can use AWS DataSync, a managed online data transfer service. AWS DataSync’s usage-based pricing is simple and predictable. You pay only for data transferred, at a flat, per-gigabyte rate—no software licenses, contracts, maintenance fees, development cycles, or hardware required.
Backup
Backing up your EFS file data can be managed simply with AWS Backup.
AWS Backup
To backup your EFS file data, you can use AWS Backup, a fully managed backup service that makes it easy to centralize and automate the backup of data across AWS services. AWS Backup provides you with a single place to monitor backup activity and to find and restore backups when needed. With AWS Backup, you pay only for the amount of backup storage you use and the amount of backup data you restore in the month. There is no minimum fee and there are no setup charges.
Total Cost of Ownership
EFS offers price advantages over self-managed cloud alternatives. For more information on how much can be saved, see the EFS Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) example here.
Additional pricing resources
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