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Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs Amazon S3 Glacier comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
9.2
Amazon EFS offers scalable, cost-effective storage with minimal maintenance, enhancing productivity and benefiting businesses through pay-as-you-go pricing.
Sentiment score
7.0
Organizations achieved 300% ROI with Amazon S3 Glacier through infrastructure savings, improved efficiency, and resource reallocation, despite support challenges.
If AWS improves support and cost management, there would be fewer reasons for users to consider other cloud platforms.
As it is Amazon S3 Glacier, it is used only for archival purposes, so it is comparatively okay to use it, and we can save money compared to the standard which is high.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
Amazon EFS support is often praised but mixed reviews highlight occasional delays and high costs for responsive assistance.
Sentiment score
5.5
Amazon S3 Glacier support is mixed: efficient assistance but variable response times, sufficient documentation, and varied support levels impact experiences.
While the time to respond was good, the time to resolve was not optimal, as it took more than a week.
Amazon's support model is consistent across services.
Training and support depend on the plan you have, with centralized support being very helpful in case issues arise.
There is room for improvement in providing more skilled and comprehensive solutions.
They provide documentation and resolve issues.
If it is a business plan, then the support we have is really good.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Amazon EFS is praised for scalability, quick deployment, and auto-scaling, with some latency challenges noted in specific environments.
Sentiment score
9.2
Amazon S3 Glacier excels in scalability, supporting vast data volumes and seamless integration, meeting diverse enterprise demands globally.
Its auto-scaling feature is a crucial point, providing high scalability that I would rate at ten out of ten.
Elastic File Systems allow me to scale up or down easily.
It is very cost-effective, and there's no need for initial charges.
Amazon S3 Glacier auto-scales according to the data.
Amazon S3 Glacier is infinitely scalable, with no issues on our end.
Glacier has excellent scalability, with elasticity and security that meet industry standards.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Amazon EFS is stable and reliable, with minimal issues, handling applications effectively and receiving high user ratings.
Sentiment score
8.4
Amazon S3 Glacier is praised for reliable performance, excellent SLA, and is ideal for cold storage despite occasional regional issues.
Amazon EFS is extremely stable, as it is managed by AWS.
While I experienced an EFS mount dropping, it was related to server issues rather than EFS itself.
It is specifically designed for cold storage.
I do not experience any stability issues.
Amazon S3 Glacier is quite stable, nine out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon EFS requires improved Windows support, performance, and security measures to enhance usability for technical and non-technical users.
Amazon S3 Glacier needs improved speed, security, compliance, pricing clarity, user experience, support, cost efficiency, and interface usability.
Enabling AI-driven or automatic features would be beneficial for new or nontechnical users.
In my project, there are challenges related to AWS, such as ensuring proper security measures with IMS code and encryption.
I would like to see improvements in the transfer rate as it takes quite a long time to retrieve data from Glacier compared to standard S3 storage.
Support could be more robust, with a focus on providing comprehensive solutions even for novel issues.
Another improvement is making Glacier available in all regions.
 

Setup Cost

Amazon EFS offers flexible pricing, but data transfer costs in India are high, impacting overall affordability.
Amazon S3 Glacier provides cost-effective data archiving, though pricing complexity raises concerns despite lower initial costs and operational flexibility.
EFS could cost around $30 to $50 per month for similar usage.
Amazon EFS is more costly compared to other storage options available from AWS.
Elastic File Systems can be expensive due to the nature of data transfer costs.
Compared to competitors like GCP, AWS can work on reducing hidden costs and overall pricing to retain startups and medium-sized businesses.
The storage cost is minimal, which is beneficial for archival purposes.
While it's generally cost-effective, the pricing model could be clearer.
 

Valuable Features

Amazon EFS offers scalable, flexible storage with seamless AWS integration, enhancing infrastructure with speed, security, and cost-effective auto-scaling.
Amazon S3 Glacier offers affordable, secure, and scalable long-term storage, ideal for infrequent data access and efficient cost management.
Its ease of integration with other AWS services enhances our infrastructure, while the shared storage access improves reliability and processing continuity for our applications.
They help me process data while maintaining low latency, which is crucial for efficient data processing.
The most valuable feature of Amazon EFS is its auto-scaling capability.
Glacier greatly helps in managing storage costs by moving historical data to a lower-cost storage option.
The security features include object lock encryption and immutability options, so we can use this for backups.
The most valuable features of Amazon S3 Glacier are its cost-effectiveness for data archiving and its durability.
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon EFS (Elastic File Sy...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Storage (9th), File and Object Storage (10th)
Amazon S3 Glacier
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Public Cloud Storage Services (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Cloud Services solutions, they serve different purposes. Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is designed for Cloud Storage and holds a mindshare of 6.9%, down 9.6% compared to last year.
Amazon S3 Glacier, on the other hand, focuses on Public Cloud Storage Services, holds 16.4% mindshare, up 15.9% since last year.
Cloud Storage
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

Featured Reviews

MuhammadAzhar Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Auto-scaling capabilities enhance file management while reducing downtime
The most valuable feature of Amazon EFS is its auto-scaling capability. It's really easy to configure EFS by just creating it and running a command to directly configure it with my servers. It supports unlimited use, and charges are applied based on the file usage at the end of the month. The solution offers reduced downtime and increased durability through its auto-scaling features.
ArunDhwaj - PeerSpot reviewer
Versatile data storage improves security and supports increasing data volumes
Amazon S3 Glacier offers robust security features and practically infinite storage, where we can store all kinds of media swiftly. It supports various data types, including semi-structured and raw formats. These features facilitate log management and data dumping since the service is versatile enough to handle large volumes of data and provide necessary security.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Educational Organization
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which file storage system is better - Amazon EFS (elastic file storage) or Azure File Storage?
Amazon EFS is easy to set up: you can use the AWS management console, API, or command-line. Amazon EFS can grow to petabytes and deliver consistent low latencies and high levels of throughput. This...
What do you like most about Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)?
The product's initial setup phase is easy, as per the configurations.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)?
Amazon EFS is more costly compared to other storage options available from AWS.
Which is better - Amazon's S3 Glacier or EBS (Elastic Block Store)?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon's S3 Glacier or Elastic Block Store data storage software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Amazon's S3 Glacier, whi...
What do you like most about Amazon S3 Glacier?
I like creating buckets where data can be segregated at a high level and then routing the appropriate data to each designated bucket. In terms of value, I would say that the tool gets the job done ...
What needs improvement with Amazon S3 Glacier?
The cost of retrieval in Glacier is quite high. It would be excellent if Amazon could work on reducing retrieval costs. Another improvement is making Glacier available in all regions.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Amazon Glacier
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Arcesium, Atlassian, Seeking Alpha, Zend
King Cpunty, Illumina, Backupify, Nearmap.com, Scribd, Baylor College of Medicine, SoundCloud
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs. Amazon S3 Glacier and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.