Hybrid Storage & Migration

Hybrid Storage & Migration Quick Notes

Storage Gateway Modes

Mode, Presents, Primary data, Fit

Volume – stored, iSCSI, Local, Backup / DR of existing disks

Volume – cached, iSCSI, S3 (local cache hot), Extend datacenter capacity

Tape (VTL), iSCSI tape, S3 / Glacier, Replace physical tape

File Gateway, NFS/SMB, S3 objects, Files as objects

FSx File Gateway, SMB, FSx for Windows, Low-latency on-prem access to FSx Windows

Amazon EFS

• NFSv4 shared file system for Linux; many EC2s mount the same FS.
• Performance modes: General Purpose (default) vs Max I/O (highly parallel).
• Throughput: Bursting vs provisioned (don’t confuse with Max I/O).
• EFS IA: Infrequent access with immediate NFS reads from many instances.
• Mount targets: create one per AZ where clients run.
• Cross-Region access: possible via inter-Region peering/TGW (still a regional service).

Amazon FSx

Flavor, Protocol, Fit

Windows File Server, SMB + AD, Windows / DFS replacement

Lustre, POSIX HPC, ML / big data; Scratch vs Persistent

DataSync

• Agent + task + two locations (NFS/SMB ↔ S3/EFS/FSx).
• Cap bandwidth (MiB/s); schedule windows.
• Online / incremental moves — prefer over Snow when continuous sync is the theme.
• DX path to EFS: private VIF + PrivateLink-style endpoint patterns (not “peering endpoint for EFS”).

Transfer Family

• Managed SFTP / FTPS / FTP / AS2 into S3 or EFS.
• Plain FTP → VPC only (not public).
• Partners uploading via SFTP into encrypted EFS → Transfer Family endpoint.

Snow Family

Device, Ballpark fit

Snowball / Snowball Edge, Tens of TB per device; multi-device for ~TB–PB

Snowmobile, Single site 10 PB+

• Jobs target an S3 bucket, then lifecycle colder if needed.
• Two-week bulk move + ongoing link: Snow for the dump + Site-to-Site VPN for ongoing (DX often too slow to provision).

DMS / SCT

• DMS: Replicate/migrate between DB endpoints (including DMS Serverless).
• SCT: Schema conversion for heterogeneous engine moves.
• License escape / engine change → often DMS + SCT together.