Amazon EBS storage – overview and key features

If you’re running applications on AWS, you’ve probably dealt with Amazon EBS storage — maybe without thinking twice. It’s the go-to option for block storage on EC2. It’s stable, scalable, and built into the AWS ecosystem. But here’s the catch — once your workloads become complex, performance-critical, or container-based, EBS can start holding you back.

Let’s take a closer look at what Amazon EBS is, where it fits, and why many teams outgrow it as they scale.

What Is Amazon EBS and How Does It Work?

Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) provides persistent block storage volumes that attach to EC2 instances. From the instance’s perspective, it’s just a mounted disk. You can format it, run databases on it, or store application data like any other block device.

It supports several volume types like gp3 (general-purpose), io2 (high IOPS), and st1/sc1 (throughput-optimized). Volumes are encrypted, can be snapshotted, and scale in size and performance with your infrastructure.

It’s tightly integrated with AWS, which is both its biggest advantage and its biggest limitation. You can learn more in the Amazon EBS documentation.

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Where Amazon EBS Fits Well

EBS works best in environments that live fully inside AWS. If you’re running traditional EC2-based apps, managing small to mid-sized databases, or need boot volumes for virtual machines, it’s easy and reliable.

It’s also suitable for teams migrating from on-prem or VMware into EC2, especially when the goal is to “lift and shift” quickly without changing much under the hood. If you’re considering this, check out how teams handle migration from Amazon RDS to PostgreSQL to avoid vendor lock-in.

Limitations of Amazon EBS in Modern Workloads

Amazon EBS was built for virtual machines, not for containerized or distributed architectures. That shows up quickly when you’re working in Kubernetes. Volumes can’t be provisioned natively. Cross-AZ support requires extra setup or external tools. Throughput often hits limits under pressure.

Snapshots can stall workloads. Volume migration isn’t straightforward. And performance tuning means increasing cost, not just changing a config.

If you’re feeling these limits, you’re not alone. More teams are turning to cost-optimized EBS strategies — or skipping EBS entirely.

Common Use Cases for Amazon EBS

• Persistent storage for EC2 workloads
  
• Hosting single-node databases inside AWS
  
• Temporary storage for analytics and batch jobs
  
• Application logs, caches, or build artifacts
  
• Backups using native snapshot functionality
  

These are all scenarios where performance, flexibility, or portability aren’t critical, or where the workload is short-lived and AWS-native.

Core Capabilities of Amazon EBS

EBS provides scalable block storage with options for general use, high IOPS, and archival data. It integrates with CloudWatch for monitoring and can be resized on the fly. Snapshots help with backups and can be used to clone volumes across regions, though the process isn’t instant.

You can attach EBS volumes to EC2 instances across a single availability zone. Encryption, access policies, and lifecycle management are all managed through AWS services like IAM and DLM.

Amazon AWS Storage support makes all this accessible, but only within a tightly bound environment.

Comparing Amazon EBS and Simplyblock for Block Storage

If you’re running Kubernetes or managing stateful workloads, EBS often needs workarounds to stay performant. That’s where Simplyblock stands out — purpose-built for cloud-native apps, high performance, and Kubernetes-native provisioning.

When and Why Teams Move Beyond Amazon EBS

As infrastructure grows — especially in containerized environments — the need for dynamic, portable, and fast block storage becomes critical. EBS wasn’t built for that. Most teams end up patching it with sidecars, provisioning scripts, or external add-ons to make it Kubernetes-friendly.

That’s why many move to Simplyblock — a high-performance alternative purpose-built for Kubernetes, without the operational drag. Unlike managed cloud volumes or other open-source options, Simplyblock keeps things fast, portable, and easy to scale, especially for teams focused on optimizing Kubernetes costs or improving cloud cost efficiency with storage tiering.

The Benefits of Moving Past EBS

Switching to a modern alternative like simplyblock gives you more than just performance gains. You get better resilience, easier scaling, and lower operational overhead, without vendor lock-in.

Here’s what teams gain by moving beyond Amazon EBS:

• Immediate volume provisioning with no manual setup
  
• Cross-zone replication without third-party tools
  
• Consistent performance at high IOPS loads
  
• Cloud-agnostic flexibility (Kubernetes-native by design)
  
• Predictable pricing without EBS burst limits or IOPS tuning
  

Storage becomes something that fits your environment, not something you have to plan around. You reduce ops overhead, simplify scaling, and avoid being boxed into AWS-native tooling.

Making Storage Work for the Way You Build

Amazon EBS storage works fine for virtual machines and smaller, predictable workloads. But it’s not designed for modern, distributed, containerized applications. Once your environment grows beyond the basics, the limitations start costing more in time, complexity, and money.

If your team is scaling Kubernetes or needs more control over how storage behaves, it might be time to stop working around EBS and start using a platform that’s built for the way you build.

Questions and answers