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Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)

Score7.5 out of 10

15 Reviews and Ratings

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What is Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)?

The Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) provides a simple, scalable, elastic file system for Linux-based workloads for use with AWS Cloud services and on-premises resources.

Categories & Use Cases

Key Features

Learn about the best (and worst!) features Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) has to offer, as determined by TrustRadius' reviewers.
Based on 15 ratings of Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)'s features
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Top Performing Features

  • Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime

    The service uptime as a percentage defined in the SLA

    Category average: 8.4

  • Dynamic scaling

    Ease of scaling up or down in response to customer needs

    Category average: 8.7

  • Elastic load balancing

    Automatic balancing and distribution of resources across multiple virtual computers

    Category average: 8.9

Areas for Improvement

  • Monitoring tools

    Monitoring tools provide alerts when problems are detected

    Category average: 7.6

  • Pre-defined machine images

    Range of different server configurations available

    Category average: 8.2

  • Pre-configured templates

    Pre-defined templates for virtual machines

    Category average: 7.7

Reviews

What users are saying about Amazon Elastic File System (EFS).
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EFS is the best option as Shared File System

Incentivized
Iván GarcíaView profile
Consultant in Professional Services at Datum, S.A. (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use EFS as a shared file system for a WebServer application, it's easy to mount of linux servers and all of them can read or write to the same storage. Excellent response time and no need to provision storage beforehand.

Pros

  • No limit on IOPS
  • No limit on storage size
  • Can optimize cost by using infrequent access tier

Cons

  • Integration with Windows instances is not supported

Return on Investment

  • Reduce administration burden of storage
  • Reduce over-all cost by using infrequent access tier

Alternatives Considered

Amazon FSx

Other Software Used

Amazon FSx, Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service), AWS Backup

Is EFS worth the trouble?

Incentivized
Verified User
Vice-President in Corporate (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use it as part of a server cloud allowing for the implementation of quick and easy access between two different web applications (WordPress and Discourse)

Pros

  • Allows for seamless transfer of user experience from one application to another
  • Allows for storage of user-uploaded images to be addressed over different servers and applications
  • EFS is scalable so it can be implemented from a small userbase set up through enterprise applications

Cons

  • Compatibility issues are always something to be on the lookout for before implementation of new technologies and systems
  • It's difficult for new employees to grasp the technology coming in from small server cloud applications. It could stand to be simpler.
  • Sharing of files sometimes doesn't go always as expected.

Return on Investment

  • Cost is always a paramount issue when looking at ROI
  • It is fast and if that's what you need for your implementation - you probably will not find a better solution
  • Expertise in EFS is sometimes hard to come by so it's best to look at your employee's ability to grasp this technology. Otherwise, it's a pretty steep learning curve.

Other Software Used

Admin Tools for Jira, Discord, Discourse

EFS is simple, highly-available NFS for your cloud environment.

Incentivized
Chris SaenzView profile
Lead System Engineer in Information Technology at Azusa Pacific University (1001-5000 employees employees)

Pros

  • EFS is easily made high-availability.
  • EFS is simple to implement.
  • EFS uses native NFS file-sharing protocol.

Cons

  • EFS could be made highly-available across regions.
  • EFS could be made with a better on-premise extension than Cloud Gateway.
  • EFS could be made to support CIFS/SMB.

Return on Investment

  • EFS has made managing NFS file exports easier with less administration.

Great Tool for Read and Write Scalability

Incentivized
Verified User
Employee in Information Technology (10,001+ employees employees)

Pros

  • This is very easy to setup and has a great performance.
  • As per the name, Elastic grows as your data grows.
  • We can run multiple EC2 instances.

Cons

  • For multiple small files, EFS performance might get degraded.
  • Doesn't have a great compatibility with Redhat 6.
  • Bit expensive

Return on Investment

  • This tool is responsible for providing efficiency in multiple aspects.
  • It has a positive impact on the business outcomes.
  • Because of this tool we are having positive impact on customer retention.

Other Software Used

AWS Certificate Manager, AWS CloudHSM, AWS CloudTrail

Excellent Tool for sharing file between EC2 Content

Incentivized
Verified User
Analyst in Information Technology (5001-10,000 employees employees)

Pros

  • Easy Integration
  • No problem like in RDBMS
  • Cloud script to maintain EFS dynamically

Cons

  • For early age start it would be costly
  • Not necessary for small scale system, but very beneficial for system which have high TPS and huge user base

Return on Investment

  • Positive: Highly scalable solution, more than 6 month for bug fixing exist only product improvement is there
  • Positive : Dynamic file maintenance to make sure no session time out issue
  • Negative: Nothing as such

Alternatives Considered

Kibana

Other Software Used

Kibana