AWS announces lower latencies for Amazon Elastic File System

Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) now delivers lower latencies enabling you to power an even broader set of applications with simple, scalable storage on AWS.

Amazon EFS now delivers up to 60% lower read operation latencies when working with frequently-accessed data and metadata. In addition, EFS now delivers up to 40% lower write operation latencies when working with small files (<64 KB) and metadata. Put together, for a typical workload these improvements can benefit the majority of all file operations. With these reductions, in the US East (N. Virginia) Region, for example, read latencies are as low as 0.25 milliseconds for frequently-accessed data, and write latencies are as low as 1.6 milliseconds for EFS-One Zone (and 2.7 milliseconds for EFS-Standard). Applications that may benefit from these improvements include content management systems, analytics, and CI/CD tools.

Lower latencies are available automatically in the US East (N. Virginia) Region for all new EFS file systems using General Purpose performance mode, as well as for new mount targets on existing EFS General Purpose file systems. These enhancements will become available in the remaining AWS commercial regions over the coming weeks. To get started using Amazon EFS, visit the product page.

12/16/2022 - This post was updated to clarify that latency improvements also apply to new mount targets on existing file systems. Latency improvements are now available in all commercial AWS Regions where Amazon EFS is available