Storage Flashcards
Main difference between EBS and Instance Store
EBS is persistent storage, Instance Store is deleted on stop of an instance
What are EBS Volumes bound to?
A specific AZ
How are EBS Volumes connected to EC2 Instances?
Through the Network
What is an advantage that makes EBS Volumes flexible?
Since EBS Volumes are Network Drives. They can be dettached from an instance and attached to a different one
What is a big limiation of EBS Volumes?
If it’s created in sa-east-1a, it can’t be attached to an EC2 instance in sa-east-1b. (Though you can snapshot a volume to move it)
If you create a 30GB EBS Volume, what are you billed?
The 30GBs
Can you extend the size of an EBS Volume?
Yes
Which of these 2 are bound to a specific AZ: EC2 Instances or EBS Volumes?
BOTH
What defines if an ebs volume is deleted when an instance is terminated?
If you enable the option “Delete on termination” for the ebs volume
how is an instances ebs volume configured by default? And how are additional ebs volumes configured?
root ebs has “delete on termination” enabled by default, other ebs volumes have this option disabled by default.
Where are Snapshots stored?
S3
is there a way to move an EBS volume from one AZ to another AZ?
Yes. There is a way to migrate an EBS Volume to a different AZ. It’s with a snapshot. (Snapshots can be moved between AZs)
What are snapshots in AWS?
A backup in s3
How can we move an EBS Volume to a different AZ?
You can take a snapshot of a volume, then restore it to a new EBS Volume. With the option “Create Volume from snapshot”. Finally you can choose any az from the current region for the destination of the new volume.
What does EBS Mean?
Elastic Block Store
How can you make a snapshot storage cheaper?
Move it to an archive tier that is available for snapshots
How cheaper is the cost of a snapshot moved to an archive tier?
75% cheaper
What is the disadvantage of moving a snapshot backup to an archive storage tier?
It takes longer to restore. From 24 up to 72hs
How can you protect EBS Snapshots from accidental deletion?
Set up the recycle bin for EBS Snapshots
How long are deleted snapshots retained by the recycle bin?
Depends on the configuration. Minimum is 1 day, maximum is 1 year.
What is FSR?
Fast Snapshot Restore: It gives you very lower latency to the i/o operations for the blocks when first accessed, on the first initialiation of a restored snapshot.
This option is enabled by snapshot
What is FSR useful for?
When you need to restore a very big snapshot and you need extra performance so this process has to be done very quickly.
Can we move an EBS Volume to a different region?
Yes. You can take a snapshot of it and then copy the snapshot to a different region. Finally restore the snapshot to a new volume in this new region.
What is AMI?
Amazon Machine Image. Basically a EC2 Instance customization for deploying EC2 instances. Like a “Template”. But templates are a different thing in EC2 and aws.
What is the basic benefit of using AMIs?
Faster boot and configuration times because of the pre-packaged software you install in an AMI.
Are AMIs region specific?
Yes. You can copy them from one region to another.
What are the different kinds of AMIs?
Public AMIs: EC2 instance Images provided by AWS
Your Own AMIs: You make and mantain them
Marketplace AMIs: An AMI someone else made, and they may sell it.
Describe the AMI Creation Process:
AMI Creation Process:
Start EC2 Instance and customize it
Stop the instance (For data integrity)
Build an AMI (Building AMI creates EBS Snapshots behind the scenes)
What is the main disadvantage of EBS Storage?
It’s network storage, so it has limited performance because of the added latency (Compared to a directly attached disk).
Why is Instance Store good? And how does this work?
It’s a high performance storage. It’s directly attached to the EC2 instance. This is because the instance store disk is in the same hardware that runs the instance.
Instance Store main advangate?
Better I/O Performance
Disadvantage of Instance Store?
It’s ephemeral storage. If you stop/hibernate/terminate an instance its instance store is deleted.
Is instance store good as a long term storage?
NO. Its not persistent storage. Its ephemeral
What are good use cases for instance store? (And why)
Buffer, cache, scratch data, temporary content.
What is a big risk of using instance store? How do you prevent this?
If hardware fails there is risk of data loss. Prevent with Backup/replication solutions
What do the terms gp2 and gp3 mean? What is it best suited for?
It’s a General Purpose EBS Volume. It means its a volume balanced for price and performance. Aimed for a wide variety of workloads. gp2/gp3 (SSD).
What does io1 and io2 mean?
Its provisioned IOPS volumes. The highest performance SSD in EBS storage. Made for low latency and high throughput workloads. It’s for MISSION CRITICAL workloads.
What does st1 mean?
It’s HDD. Bad compared to general purpose and block express SSDs. But it’s low cost and its the high end for HDD EBS Storages. It’s for frequently accessed workloads.
What does sc1 mean?
It’s the lowest end disk type in EBS. It’s HDD and designed for less frequently accessed workloads
Which type of EBS Volumes can be used as boot volumes?
Only General purpose gp2/gp3 SSDs, and provisioned iops: io1 and io2 block express SSDs.
How many types of EBS storage are there?
6: gp2, gp3, io2, io3, st1, sc1.
What are the use cases of general purpose EBS Volumes?
Good for Virtual Desktops, system boot volumes, and development or test environments.
What are the characteristics of general purpose EBS Volumes?
Cost effective
Low latency (For EBS)
Its SSD disk
Can boot from it
2 Types: gp2 and gp3
dont support multi-attach
Whats the difference between gp2 and gp3 storage types?
In gp2 you increase iops and bandwidth with the size of the disk.
In gp3 you can increase iops and MiB/s independently