Amazon EFS
EFS is the shared filesystem that multiple servers and containers can mount at the same time. It makes each runtime see the same file paths instead of keeping separate local disks in sync.
▶Architecture Diagram
🔗 RelationshipDashed line animations indicate the flow direction of data or requests
When several containers and instances need the same files, separate server disks make upload paths and file synchronization drift out of sync. If a change in one runtime does not appear immediately in another, you keep paying for the lack of shared storage.
As cloud server counts grew, using rsync or app-level replication for file sharing hit its limits. This is why a managed network filesystem layer like EFS became necessary.
EFS provides a managed filesystem based on NFS, with mount targets that let multiple EC2 instances or ECS tasks share the same data. As a regional service it stores data across multiple Availability Zones, and if needed the same filesystem can also be reached from on-premises servers through Direct Connect or VPN.
EFS and EBS are both storage but differ in access patterns. EFS is a shared filesystem mounted simultaneously by multiple compute resources, while EBS is typically a block disk attached to a single instance. If several servers or containers need the same shared path, look at EFS; if you need a fixed disk attached to one server, look at EBS.
Well-suited for shared upload directories, CMS assets, files viewed by multiple containers, shared file areas in lift-and-shift applications, and collaborative server directories. Overkill when you only need a local disk attached to a single server.