Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store) Reviews

I primarily use Amazon EBS for my storage needs and for creating backups. It is highly compatible with other AWS services, which allows for easy data storage and retrieval.

I have utilized Amazon EBS in different ways, and it has worked very smoothly and perfectly. There have been no disruptions.

Amazon EBS offers features such as cloud migrations and different deployments, which are incredibly beneficial in moving data from on-premises to the cloud. The platform is stable and can be replicated across different availability zones and data centers.

There are no current recommendations for improvement. However, implementing more AI-based capabilities could enhance the service.

I have been working with Amazon EBS for one and a half years.

Amazon EBS is very stable. It replicates data across different availability zones and ensures data is reliably backed up and accessible.

Amazon EBS is easy to scale up or down as needed. I would rate its scalability as ten out of ten.

The AWS customer support is very cooperative, fast to reply, and solutions-oriented. They are highly recommended.

The initial setup of Amazon EBS was very easy. Even for beginners, the setup is seamless and easy to perform.

Amazon EBS is a cost-efficient solution. It is very cost-effective and offers great value.

I highly recommend Amazon EBS for enterprises and small businesses due to its cost efficiency and ease of use. 

I rate the overall solution ten out of ten.

I mainly use Amazon EBS for EC2 configuration. We use it for the EC2 purpose to store data and mount with the running EC2 instances. EBS is the backbone of the compute instances. It is not only a disk; it is the main support for running EC2 instances. Moreover, if you want to use the EBS volume in your EKS cluster, like a Kubernetes cluster, you have to use it.

In a traditional setup, if you want to add a disk to legacy systems, you need to purchase, find the hardware vendor, and insert it, which is a lengthy procedure. 

With Amazon EBS, if you want to add an additional disk to an EC2 instance, you can simply attach an EBS volume by clicking through a few options, and it's done.

There is room for improvement in AWS support. They have technically strong people. However, sometimes there is a lag in providing technical solutions to customers.

I have been using Amazon EBS since approximately 2019 or 2018.

Based on stability, I would rate EBS more than nine, possibly 9.5 out of ten.

For scalability, I would also rate it at 9.5 out of ten. It is amazing.

AWS support is good, but there is space for improvement. They follow the SLA, but the technical solution responses have room for enhancement.

Neutral

The initial setup of Amazon EBS is straightforward. Even if you want to add an additional disk after deployment, you can do it. If you wish to expand the volume, it is also possible.

Amazon EBS is the backbone of running instances, and most people are aware of using it. However, to cut costs, you must choose the right size when provisioning. 

Ensure your data's security by selecting the right encryption keys, AWS region, and availability zone to avoid duplicate work. Additionally, if your image is from the marketplace, read the instructions given by third-party vendors. If you use a global encryption key for EBS volume, ensure approval from your organization for global KMS key or EBS encryption key for your account.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

I use Amazon EBS in two instances. Firstly, I run a startup where our workloads are on the cloud, so we leverage AWS services. 

Secondly, I help customers who use AWS cloud since I work as an authorized instructor with AWS authorized training partners.

Amazon EBS has improved versions and frequently releases new features and different families while selecting compute resources. A valuable feature is the ability to create snapshots and reuse them across different instances. If an instance is terminated abruptly or accidentally, I can reattach the volume to a different instance. This functionality adds great flexibility and reliability.

There is a challenge of intermittent reachability with instances, where the product is sometimes available and other times not, which affects the development environment's stability. Manual resizing of storage capacity is required, which could be simplified. 

Additionally, instances running on Debian experienced more intermittent failures compared to those running on CentOS.

I have been using EBS for about a year.

Besides the challenge of intermittent failure of instances, which is not directly an EBS issue, the stability is generally acceptable.

EBS can scale, but the process is somewhat manual compared to serverless options. 

Overall, the scalability is sufficient but requires manual intervention for adjustments.

I primarily use community support through Slack and have found answers there. However, when a customer faced an issue with creating an AWS account, contacting support took a while, and the response lacked detail.

Positive

The initial setup requires some prior knowledge about instances and server configurations. Deployment and configuration require foundational understanding before properly setting up the servers.

Amazon EBS is perfectly serving its purpose, and I absolutely recommend it to others. 

I would rate it nine out of ten.

We keep the data generated by the applications in the solution. We also store application logs. It is very easy to integrate the tool with the EC2 instance. I use the AWS console to integrate the products. Sometimes, I use CLI.

When the data is created, we save it in EBS. It's data-intensive, and sometimes, the data is very important. To avoid losing the data, we create a snapshot of the volumes every hour or once every two hours. We select volumes like gp2 and gp3 based on our requirements. EBS is customizable. We can select any volume depending on speed and size. The integration is very easy. We can mount EBS within seconds. We can also delete or unmount it.

It also provides API support. The durability and snapshot capabilities are good. The way they are designed is very good. We rarely find our EBS corrupted. It's very robust and easy to use. I never faced any issues with durability. The maximum size is 1000 GB. The solution is available whenever we need it.

The features could be improved.

I have been using the solution for five to seven years.

I rate the tool’s stability a ten out of ten.

I rate the tool’s scalability a ten out of ten.

We need to pay for support.

Negative

Integrating EBS into EC2 is very easy. Even people who are not from technical backgrounds can do it.

The solution is quite costly. There was an instance when we were not using 50 volumes. They were available and were costing us even though we were not using them. We ran a script to delete them. It's better to keep a watch on it and delete it whenever it is not needed. AWS has a pay-as-you-go model.

We have been using the solution since we have deployed our applications on AWS. If we track 100 GB of EBS volume, we know that the total data collected from the application will not cross 100 GB. Sometimes, we use Amazon S3 for object storage. If there is any transit data, we store it directly in S3. Our EBS volumes are free most of the time.

Logs mostly fill the EBS volumes quickly. We have an instance to monitor our Kubernetes cluster, and it fills the EBS volume very quickly. So, we have written a script to delete the older logs. I will recommend the solution to others. Anyone using EC2 must use EBS by default. It's very easy to use and integrate. Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

During my internship, I used Amazon EBS for a small business portfolio where we had an e-commerce website locally. I utilized Amazon EBS as the storage solution for the EC2 servers we were using at that time.

The most impressive aspects of Amazon EBS are its scalability and high availability. These features make it easy to adjust resources up or down according to the requirements.

I am still in the learning process regarding Amazon EBS, so I'm not entirely sure what specific improvements are needed. It has been good enough for my current learning and usage.

The last time I used Amazon EBS was about two months ago, during my internship.

Amazon EBS is indeed stable, and I would rate its stability as quite high.

Scalability is impressive and allows for easy scaling of resources up or down.

I had an experience where I needed to contact Amazon's customer service. They were available even at two AM, demonstrating a cooperative environment. This support was surprising and positive.

Positive

My clients had been using other services that were more expensive before switching to AWS. Switching reduced their budget, as AWS offers a pay-for-what-you-use model with transparency and no hidden charges.

The setup of Amazon EBS is easy to use.

In terms of pricing, Amazon EBS is not expensive. The pay-for-what-you-use model justifies the amount paid, with no extra or hidden charges.

I would rate Amazon EBS a nine out of ten overall. There is always room for improvement in every aspect, which is why I did not give it a full ten.

I use Amazon EC2 instances, AWS Lambda, API Gateway, and EBS for storing data. EBS is primarily associated with Amazon EC2 instances.

The main advantage is the ability to scale up and scale down easily without any downtime. Amazon EBS allows seamless changes to the instance type without affecting application availability. 

It also supports encryption by default for added security.

I do not have anything in mind for improvement at the moment.

I have been using Amazon EBS for around eight years.

Amazon EBS is stable and easy to use. Detaching and attaching volumes are very straightforward, contributing to the overall stability.

Amazon EBS provides effective scalability with the ability to modify volume size easily and have it reflect instantly.

Accessing technical support requires a paid subscription plan. Once subscribed, the support team is very responsive, connecting remotely to assist with troubleshooting.

Positive

Amazon EBS is priced based on usage, and it is fairly priced. Users are charged only for the data used, not for the allocated volume.

I recommend using EBS because of its flexibility with volumes. Instead of instance-based storage, EBS is more efficient.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We use dev tools. We had our own server for product development. For the dev environment, we use it for database servers as well as to share files between our teams. We also use EFS, like file storage. These were the primary uses cases for us. 

One of the most valuable was snapshots. There were scenarios in which the whole EC2 crashed, or we were unable to use it for some time, but the data on the mounted volumes were crucial to us. So, at that time, snapshots were very helpful.

There is room for improvement in terms of file storage. Recently, we had a scenario in which, in a file share, we had increased the IOPS capacity; this was for the production environment. We had previously done that, but for some reason, it went down. We weren't able to access that specific drive or volume. So, because it was production, it impacted our clients also.

We had an AWS support call. Basically, they also did the same steps which we were requiring. We had requested them to decrease the IOPS capacity and make the volume available so that at least the customer impact would be reduced, but we had to wait around, like, more than 300 GBs. So, for volume recovery, we had to wait around eight hours. That took major downtime. So, it was just a small task; we had done it for increasing dial-ups, but we were not sure what went wrong, and even AWS didn't have an answer. So we had to wait a full eight hours for this to be available from the snapshot, and then we were able to attach it again. That was a major downtime or an area on which AWS could improve.

I had been consulting for a project, so it was close to two years since I started using this solution. We were working with EC2 and Block storage.

I would rate the stability a seven out of ten. We had some scenarios. Because if we were using some lower-tier offering, that might be integrated into architecture and lead to failures. But we used a specialized tool. 

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. It is good, but there's room for improvement in terms of troubleshooting.

There are around 200 end users using this solution in our organization. We don't give access directly; it's indirectly through dev and test roles. They all use our EBS.

The setup is a bit easy. If someone is from a cloud background with basic domain knowledge of how most speakers work or the hard drives that work on a local machine, they would be able to put two and two together, like, "Oh, these volumes are like hot-swaps for us."

Our deployment model is on a private cloud. We also have a public offering, but that is just an endpoint that we share with the customers. Currently, we are using AWS for our product development.

The pricing seems affordable compared to what other offerings provide.

I would say start with the basics. The free tier offers 50 GB, so you could make use of that and then go forward with it. If you want to set up disaster recovery or a standby setup, you could make use of that. 

If you prefer not to rely solely on AWS, you can create an S3 bucket to store the snapshots. Then, you can access these snapshots in a different region to reduce costs. This is something we've observed. If you don't want to opt for a multi-AZ snapshot, it might incur additional expenses. However, by storing the snapshot in S3 and accessing it from another region, you can replicate the snapshot. It serves as a workaround.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

Amazon EBS is used as a block storage solution, particularly for high-performance computing, databases, data management, snapshots, and backups. It's especially beneficial for organizations needing consistent high-throughput performance, such as those handling large databases or analytics workloads.

Amazon EBS has significantly helped in cost savings and improving the overall performance of databases. It has allowed better data management, making the process easier and more efficient, and restored confidence in complete solutions.

The integration of Amazon EBS with EC2, S3, and Amazon Glacier is seamless and easy, creating a comprehensive cloud environment. The feature of encryption is particularly beneficial, providing a higher level of security. The solution is globally available and ensures high performance and reliability, which makes it valuable for organizations that require enhanced throughput and seamless data management capabilities.

There is a lack of awareness and knowledge about Amazon EBS among potential users, which results in underutilization. Additionally, there might be a lack of marketing highlighting the capabilities of EBS, which could improve its popularity and utilization.

I have been working with Amazon EBS for almost one and a half years.

On a longer-term basis, there are no stability issues with Amazon EBS. However, initially, there were minor connectivity issues, but they were resolved quickly and easily.

The scalability of Amazon EBS has positively impacted operations. It has helped database-heavy organizations improve performance and cost efficiency.

We did not require technical support from AWS for EBS.

Neutral

Amazon EBS provides significant time savings due to increased throughput and improves overall database performance.

The cost of Amazon EBS is slightly higher compared to other competitors, approximately five to ten percent higher. However, the benefits, including high performance and reliability, outweigh the costs, making it a cost-efficient option.

I do not have much experience with other block storage solutions outside of AWS.

For clients needing high database performance or involved heavily in analytics, Amazon EBS is highly recommended. However, for those not requiring high-performance database solutions or dealing with big data, it may not be necessary.

I would rate it a seven out of ten.