If you are researching the best options for a highly scalable and durable data storage, the ‘big Gorilla; to opt for is Amazon Simple Storage Solution or Amazon S3 as it is mostly referred to. It is indeed an excellent low cost scalable option for efficient data storage for unstructured data such as videos, images, documents etc and structured data, such as logs.
The popularity and scalability of Amazon S3 has made it the world leader in object storage technology.
Why use Amazon S3 as a Native Desktop Drive?
What advantages does it offer outside of pure play data storage and accessing through the Amazon Web Services Console? Mounting the Amazon S3 bucket as a local filesystem can be quite useful and practical in more ways than one:
- It can simulate the local Windows Filer ‘Home Drive’ that end users are used to
- It can be used with Amazon WorkSpaces instances to facilitate easy on-demand access to S3 data.
- It can be used as a local low cost gateway from file to object
- It can also be useful in areas where Companies want to be able to enable legacy applications to output data to the cloud.
- It can facilitate easy on-demand local archinving to the cloud
A few other things you should think about when using Amazon S3 as a file system
There are a few things you need to give some thought to when choosing Amazon S3 as your local file system storage.
- You may experience a slight network delay in terms of IO centric operations. This involves moving or creating files. After all the files are actually remote even though the appear local.
- You would not be able to edit the same copy of a file. Object Storage technology requires that a file be replaced entirely with the new file.
- The maximum file size is limited to 5 GB.
- Initial access to the Amazon S3 drive may be slightly delayed. Subsequent access should be easily connected.
In essence, mounting Amazon S3 as a drive storage, such as offered by Storage Made Easy can be quite useful and practical in integrating local files systems with remote object storage. Mounting Amazon S3 on your desktop devices is easily accessible and can be done with practically any such device – servers, laptops and containers.
The Storage Made Easy S3 mounted drive works with any S3 compatible object storage ie. not just Amazon S3. It also features caching for speedier access and additionally has eviction policies that can be configured to ensure that the cache does not get too large. The drive is provided in two editions, a local end user edition for working with remote documents locally, and an enterprise server edition that runs as a service and is optimised for high volume file to object use cases.
