AWS Technical Essentials Practice

Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) provides block storage, which is a distinct type of storage that is designed to be highly performant and efficient for use with Amazon EC2 instances. Block storage divides data into fixed-sized blocks and stores these blocks separately, which allows for higher levels of access speed and performance compared to other storage types.

Block storage is particularly advantageous for applications that require frequent read/write operations, such as databases and other transactional systems. EBS volumes can be attached to EC2 instances, allowing them to function as a hard drive. This means that EBS can be utilized for tasks like system boot volumes, application storage, and high-performance databases.

In contrast, other types of storage like object storage is designed for data that is not frequently accessed and is stored as discrete units with metadata (e.g., Amazon S3). File storage serves data as files organized in a hierarchy, suitable for shared file systems (such as Amazon Elastic File System). Archive storage provides a low-cost solution for retaining data that is infrequently accessed (e.g., Amazon S3 Glacier). Each of these types fulfills specific use cases, but for scenarios requiring direct, high-performance access to storage, block storage like that provided by Amazon EBS is the most fitting choice.