A Guide to Amazon EFS File System and Storage Class Costs

AWS Elastic File System (EFS) offers three storage classes—Standard, Infrequent Access, and the newly introduced Archive—each catering to different performance and cost needs. EFS Archive, the most economical option, is suitable for data accessed infrequently, offering up to 97% savings compared to EFS Standard. Users can transition files across these classes using lifecycle management to optimize costs based on data access frequency. EFS also provides two file system options: Regional, which offers high availability by storing files across multiple availability zones, and One Zone, which is more cost-effective but with lower availability. A case study involving a university research project demonstrates significant cost savings by strategically using these storage classes, particularly when transitioning from Standard directly to Archive. Understanding the trade-offs between availability, cost, and performance is crucial for selecting the most appropriate storage class and file system to meet specific use cases and budget requirements.