Sr. Technical Account Manager at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
Dec 4, 2025
When I started working with Amazon EFS (Elastic File System), I faced a few issues. One issue was around the number of IOPS limitation. Initially, the number of IOPS that could be performed on the Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) file system was quite low. Later on, it has been increased, and now I believe it is at a level where only very specific workloads might not perform optimally, but otherwise everything should work smoothly. By the time I was there, Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) was supporting NFS version 4.1, not 4.2. Currently, it is supported up to NFS 4.1. A notable limitation of Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is that it does not support Windows. If your workload is running on a Linux operating system and you do not want to manage it or even understand NFS at all, you should still be able to use it fairly quickly. There are scenarios where Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) might not work effectively. For example, database-type workloads do not run properly on Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) because at the end of the day, it is a network file system and requests must travel from one place to another and then return. This process takes time, so if you are running a database-type workload, Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) might not be the right approach, and you would need to look elsewhere.
What should be improved in Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is the costing, as it should be reduced, but that depends on Amazon. To be frank, I don't have much comparison as we don't have a good volume. We have very little volume on the EFS (Elastic File System), which is why I couldn't do much cost comparison. Currently, I'm not aware of the exact costing, but previously I found that the costing was a bit high.
We currently do not seek out any other improvements because we built this architecture for our demand, so if something comes up, we will have to evaluate it.
EFS could be improved by including a one-click setup. Currently, after creating EFS, it needs to be integrated with servers manually. It would be easier if AWS could handle these parts. Additionally, 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. This is a significant challenge in every project.
Learn what your peers think about Amazon EFS (Elastic File System). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
The product's stability has some shortcomings where improvements are required. The product's technical support team takes time to resolve our company's queries related to the product, making it an area where improvements are required.
Senior Cloud Engineer at a tech consulting company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 10
Mar 6, 2024
When we faced some issues, the support team took a lot of time to resolve them. We raised the concern to the support team when we got the issue. We got the resolution, but it took more time than expected.
Specifically, when it comes to the file system for the learning system, we encountered performance issues with both Azure and AWS. To address this, we experimented with external solutions like NetApp's file system on Amazon's marketplace. In some aspects, we found that on-premises solutions performed better. In terms of additional services, there is no need as Amazon has everything.
Information Technology Specialist at Infiniti Creation
Real User
Aug 3, 2023
There are many customers using either Windows or Linux. Around 80 percent of the features of Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) are available on Linux and not in Windows, making it a major drawback of the product. I would like to see more features for Windows desktops since, if we look at our clients, most of them are using Windows and their desktops and not Linux. Even small customers or small companies are prepared to go with a Windows desktop or computer. On Windows, if there is a requirement for a file system, then Amazon NFS is the most preferable method in major cases. The solution needs to have more features to support Windows OS, along with the need to have more security-related features introduced in the solution while being an easily customizable solution for its customers. I would like the solution's stability to be improved.
The solution's deployment process could be faster while installing Python packages. If the Python environment is also maintained in the EFS, then installing modules takes forever to complete. Thus, we had to maintain the package environment outside of EFS, like within the EC2 instance it is mounted to.
The user activity needs to be more connected and not required to connect to a PC or a device. It would be good to have remote access to a client, like OneDrive that we can share with other.
Customer Engagement, Presales and GIS Solution Architect at ESRI INDIA
Real User
Mar 30, 2020
It should be simplified. There are people who don't have cloud experience. It should be storage that we are able to just connect to. We help create direct connectors to the cloud storage so we can just connect them like any regular databases. We just connect them then store it.
Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) provides simple, scalable file storage for use with Amazon EC2 instances in the AWS Cloud. Amazon EFS is easy to use and offers a simple interface that allows you to create and configure file systems quickly and easily. With Amazon EFS, storage capacity is elastic, growing and shrinking automatically as you add and remove files, so your applications have the storage they need, when they need it.
When mounted to Amazon EC2 instances, an Amazon EFS file...
When I started working with Amazon EFS (Elastic File System), I faced a few issues. One issue was around the number of IOPS limitation. Initially, the number of IOPS that could be performed on the Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) file system was quite low. Later on, it has been increased, and now I believe it is at a level where only very specific workloads might not perform optimally, but otherwise everything should work smoothly. By the time I was there, Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) was supporting NFS version 4.1, not 4.2. Currently, it is supported up to NFS 4.1. A notable limitation of Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is that it does not support Windows. If your workload is running on a Linux operating system and you do not want to manage it or even understand NFS at all, you should still be able to use it fairly quickly. There are scenarios where Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) might not work effectively. For example, database-type workloads do not run properly on Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) because at the end of the day, it is a network file system and requests must travel from one place to another and then return. This process takes time, so if you are running a database-type workload, Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) might not be the right approach, and you would need to look elsewhere.
What should be improved in Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is the costing, as it should be reduced, but that depends on Amazon. To be frank, I don't have much comparison as we don't have a good volume. We have very little volume on the EFS (Elastic File System), which is why I couldn't do much cost comparison. Currently, I'm not aware of the exact costing, but previously I found that the costing was a bit high.
We currently do not seek out any other improvements because we built this architecture for our demand, so if something comes up, we will have to evaluate it.
EFS could be improved by including a one-click setup. Currently, after creating EFS, it needs to be integrated with servers manually. It would be easier if AWS could handle these parts. Additionally, 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. This is a significant challenge in every project.
I have not encountered any specific areas for improvement. Whenever I use this service, it performs as expected without significant issues.
The performance should improve. That's what we expect. So increase the performance and decrease the latency.
The platform's connectivity could be improved to be more comparable to S3 buckets, which offer better API availability.
The product's stability has some shortcomings where improvements are required. The product's technical support team takes time to resolve our company's queries related to the product, making it an area where improvements are required.
When we faced some issues, the support team took a lot of time to resolve them. We raised the concern to the support team when we got the issue. We got the resolution, but it took more time than expected.
Specifically, when it comes to the file system for the learning system, we encountered performance issues with both Azure and AWS. To address this, we experimented with external solutions like NetApp's file system on Amazon's marketplace. In some aspects, we found that on-premises solutions performed better. In terms of additional services, there is no need as Amazon has everything.
There are many customers using either Windows or Linux. Around 80 percent of the features of Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) are available on Linux and not in Windows, making it a major drawback of the product. I would like to see more features for Windows desktops since, if we look at our clients, most of them are using Windows and their desktops and not Linux. Even small customers or small companies are prepared to go with a Windows desktop or computer. On Windows, if there is a requirement for a file system, then Amazon NFS is the most preferable method in major cases. The solution needs to have more features to support Windows OS, along with the need to have more security-related features introduced in the solution while being an easily customizable solution for its customers. I would like the solution's stability to be improved.
The solution's deployment process could be faster while installing Python packages. If the Python environment is also maintained in the EFS, then installing modules takes forever to complete. Thus, we had to maintain the package environment outside of EFS, like within the EC2 instance it is mounted to.
The user activity needs to be more connected and not required to connect to a PC or a device. It would be good to have remote access to a client, like OneDrive that we can share with other.
It could be better in connecting with Windows Server instances.
It should be simplified. There are people who don't have cloud experience. It should be storage that we are able to just connect to. We help create direct connectors to the cloud storage so we can just connect them like any regular databases. We just connect them then store it.