At AWS re:Invent, Amazon announced a number of new storage capabilities, such as new Amazon EC2 instances and a new storage class for FSx in OpenZFS file systems. 

Amazon EC2 I8g instances are new EC2 instances optimized for storage, powered by 3rd gen AWS Nitro SSDs and AWS Graviton processors.

They offer up to 65% better storage performance per TB and 60% lower latency compared to the previous generation, I4g. They also offer up to 22.5 TB of storage, 96 vCPUs, and 768 GiB of memory, according to AWS. 

Additionally, the company announced new Amazon EC2 I7ie instances that are optimized for storage, also powered by 3rd gen AWS Nitro SSDs.

According to AWS, compared to the previous generation, Amazon EC2 I7ie instance offer up to 65% better real-time storage performance per TB, up to 50% lower I/O latency and 65% lower latency variability, up to 40% better compute performance, up to twice as many vCPUs, up to twice as much memory, and 20% better price-performance. 

Amazon EC2 I7ie instances come in nine sizes of varying vCPUs, memory, NVMe storage, EBS bandwidth, and network bandwidth.

Amazon FSx Intelligent-Tiering

This is a new storage class for FSx in OpenZFS file systems. Data will now move between three storage tiers to optimize costs: Frequent Access, Infrequent Access, and Archive. Frequent Access stores data that has been accessed in the last 30 days; Infrequent Access stores data that hasn’t been accessed for 30 to 90 days, at a 44% reduced cost; and Archive stores data that hasn’t been accessed for over 90 days, at a 65% reduced cost. 

“The new storage class is priced 85% lower than the existing SSD storage class and 20% lower than traditional HDD-based deployments on premises, and brings full elasticity and intelligent tiering to NAS data sets,” Jeff Barr, chief evangelist at AWS, wrote in a blog post. 

AWS Data Transfer Terminal

Now generally available, the AWS Data Transfer Terminal is a secure physical location where storage devices can be brought to securely and more quickly upload data to AWS. 

Two Data Transfer Terminals are now available (in New York and LA) and more locations will be added around the world. Each Terminal room includes a patch panel, fiber optic cable, and computer. 

Storage Browser for Amazon S3

This is a new open source UI component that can be added to web applications that allows end users to interact with data stored in Amazon S3. Users can browse, upload, download, copy, and delete data, depending on their specific user identity permissions. 

“It gives you full control of the access rules to ensure the frontend complies with your access requirements while providing a great user experience through an interface that you can style to make it appear as a natural extension of your application,” Matheus Guimaraes, senior developer advocate at AWS, wrote in a blog post.