EC2 Instance Storage Flashcards
What is an EBS Volume?
A network drive attached to EC2 instances that persists data even after termination.
Can EBS volumes be mounted to multiple instances?
No, only one instance at a time.
Are EBS volumes AZ-specific?
Yes, they are bound to a specific Availability Zone.
What is a good analogy for an EBS volume?
A network USB stick.
What is included in the EBS free tier?
30 GB/month of General Purpose SSD or Magnetic storage.
How is an EBS volume connected?
Over the network, which can introduce latency.
Can EBS volumes be detached and reattached?
Yes, quickly between instances in the same AZ.
How do you move an EBS volume across AZs?
Create a snapshot, then restore it in the new AZ.
What does the ‘Delete on Termination’ attribute do?
Controls whether the EBS volume is deleted when the EC2 instance is terminated.
What is an EBS Snapshot?
A point-in-time backup of an EBS volume.
Do you need to detach a volume to take a snapshot?
No, but it is recommended.
Can you copy EBS snapshots across AZs and Regions?
Yes.
What is the EBS Snapshot Archive?
A low-cost storage tier for EBS snapshots, slower to restore.
What is the Recycle Bin for EBS Snapshots?
Allows retention of deleted snapshots for recovery.
What is Fast Snapshot Restore (FSR)?
Pre-initializes snapshots to avoid latency on first use.
What is an AMI?
Amazon Machine Image, a template to launch EC2 instances.
What is included in an AMI?
Custom software, OS, configs, and monitoring.
How do you create an AMI from an EC2 instance?
Stop the instance, create AMI, which also creates EBS snapshots.
What is EC2 Instance Store?
High-performance local storage that is ephemeral.
When is EC2 Instance Store data lost?
When the instance is stopped or hardware fails.
What are the 6 EBS volume types?
gp2, gp3, io1, io2, st1, sc1.
Which EBS types can be used as boot volumes?
gp2, gp3, io1, io2.
What is the baseline IOPS for gp3?
3,000 IOPS and 125 MiB/s throughput.
How does gp2 IOPS scale?
3 IOPS per GB, up to 16,000 IOPS.
What is io2 Block Express’s max IOPS?
Up to 256,000 with a 1000:1 IOPS:GiB ratio.
What is EBS Multi-Attach?
Allows io1/io2 volumes to be attached to multiple EC2 instances in the same AZ.
What kind of file system is required for Multi-Attach?
Cluster-aware file systems.
What is Amazon EFS?
Managed NFS that supports multi-AZ and multi-instance mounting.
What protocol does EFS use?
NFSv4.
Is EFS compatible with Windows?
No, only Linux-based AMIs.
How is EFS secured?
With security groups and encryption via KMS.
How does EFS scale?
Automatically, up to petabyte-scale and 10+ GB/s throughput.
What are the EFS performance modes?
General Purpose and Max I/O.
What are the EFS throughput modes?
Bursting, Provisioned, and Elastic.
What are the EFS storage tiers?
Standard, Infrequent Access (IA), Archive.
How is data tiered in EFS?
Using lifecycle policies.
What is the availability model of EFS One Zone?
Single AZ, good for dev, lower cost.
How does EFS differ from EBS?
EFS supports multi-AZ/multi-instance; EBS is AZ-locked and single-instance.
What should you do before migrating an EBS volume to another AZ?
Take a snapshot and restore in the new AZ.
