NFS vs EFS: Choosing the Right Network File System for Your Workloads

Introduction

Shared file storage is a foundational piece of many infrastructure architectures—from legacy on‑premises applications to modern containerized microservices. Two terms you’ll encounter often are:

• NFS (Network File System) – the long‑standing, POSIX‑style file sharing protocol.
• EFS (Amazon Elastic File System) – AWS’s managed network file system service.

They’re related but not interchangeable: EFS uses NFS, but NFS is not EFS.

This article explains:

• What NFS and EFS actually are
• How they’re similar and how they differ
• Performance, availability, security, and cost considerations
• Common architectures and when to choose each
• Practical examples (mount commands, Terraform snippets, migration patterns)

The goal is to help you decide: “Should I just use standard NFS, or is EFS the right choice for this workload?”

1. What Is NFS?

1.1 Conceptual overview

NFS (Network File System) is a protocol that lets you:

• Store files on a remote server
• Mount that remote directory on one or more clients
• Access those files as if they were local (POSIX semantics: open, read, write, chmod, etc.)

Key points:

• Originally developed by Sun Microsystems in the 1980s
• Standardized and widely implemented on Unix, Linux, macOS, and even Windows
• Current common versions: NFSv3 and NFSv4.x
• Stateless (v3) vs more stateful features like locking and ACLs (v4)

NFS is just a protocol and some software (server + client). You still need to provide:

• The server host(s) (bare metal, VM, or appliance)
• Disks / storage backend
• Network configuration
• Security, backup, and scaling strategy

1.2 Typical NFS components

A classic on‑prem or VM‑based NFS deployment usually involves:

• NFS Server (exporter)

  • Linux server running nfs-kernel-server (or vendor appliance)
  • One or more filesystems or directories “exported” over NFS

• Storage back-end

  • Local SSD/HDD
  • RAID arrays
  • SAN / iSCSI volumes
  • LVM, ZFS, etc.

• NFS Clients

  • Mount remote shares via mount -t nfs ...
  • Applications read/write like a local filesystem

• Management

  • Patching and OS upgrades
  • Capacity planning and scaling
  • High availability (HA) and backups

NFS is flexible and powerful, but you manage almost everything yourself.

2. What Is EFS?

2.1 Conceptual overview

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is a fully managed NFS file system service from AWS. It gives you:

• A POSIX‑compliant shared filesystem
• Accessible concurrently from many EC2 instances, containers, and Lambda functions
• Mounted using NFSv4.1 over your VPC network
• Elastic scaling: grows and shrinks with usage
• Built‑in durability and availability across AZs (in regional mode)

EFS is not a protocol; it’s a hosted service that implements NFS for you.

2.2 Key properties of EFS

• Managed control plane:
  AWS handles servers, HA, scaling, patching, storage layout.

• Elastic capacity:
  You don’t pre‑size it. You’re billed for the amount of data stored (and some performance configs), not for provisioned capacity.

• Multi‑AZ availability (Regional):
  By default, EFS is designed to be regional: data is stored redundantly across multiple Availability Zones.

• Performance modes:

  • General Purpose
  • Max I/O
    And two throughput modes:
  • Bursting
  • Provisioned

• Deep AWS integration:
  Works smoothly with:

  • EC2, ECS, EKS
  • Lambda
  • IAM for access control
  • Security groups, VPC, CloudWatch

In short, EFS = NFS as a managed, elastic, highly available service within AWS.

3. NFS vs EFS: Key Similarities

At a high level, NFS and EFS share several core characteristics:

1. POSIX‑style filesystem semantics

   • Directories, files, permissions, symlinks
   • chmod, chown, ln, etc. behave as expected

2. Client access via NFS protocol

   • EFS uses NFSv4.1
   • Traditional NFS can be v3 or v4.x
   • Mount commands on Linux are similar

3. Shared, networked storage

   • Multiple clients can mount the same filesystem/path
   • Useful for:
     • Shared application assets
     • User home directories
     • Web content (e.g., /var/www/html)
     • Training data for ML workloads

4. Use cases

   • Lift‑and‑shift of legacy apps requiring shared POSIX storage
   • CI/CD artifacts
   • Containerized apps needing shared volumes
   • Big data/log processing (with some caveats on throughput)

From an application’s point of view, both look like a remote filesystem mounted over NFS.

4. NFS vs EFS: Key Differences

This is where decisions get made. Conceptually:

NFS is a protocol + your implementation.
EFS is a managed implementation of NFS, within AWS, with specific trade‑offs.

4.1 Ownership and management

Traditional NFS (self‑managed):

• You own and manage:

  • Server instances/appliances
  • Storage capacity and performance
  • OS patches, NFS version upgrades
  • Snapshots, backups, and DR strategy
  • HA / failover configuration

• You have more low‑level control:

  • Filesystem choice: ext4, XFS, ZFS…
  • RAID configuration
  • Caching and tuning parameters

EFS (managed):

• AWS manages:

  • Underlying servers and storage
  • Redundancy and HA
  • Patching and upgrades
  • Durability and most of the DR story

• You configure:

  • Performance and throughput modes
  • Lifecycle policies (Standard vs Infrequent Access)
  • Access points and IAM
  • Network access (VPC, security groups, mount targets)

Implication:

• If you want full control or must run outside AWS, use NFS.
• If you’re in AWS and prefer to offload operational overhead, EFS is appealing.

4.2 Deployment environment

• NFS:

  • Works in any environment:
    • On‑premises data centers
    • Private clouds
    • Any public cloud, including AWS (self‑hosted NFS on EC2)
  • Can be combined with any OS and storage vendor that supports NFS.

• EFS:

  • Only available in AWS regions where EFS is supported.
  • Accessible from:
    • EC2 in the same region/VPC (or peered VPCs)
    • ECS/EKS tasks/pods
    • Lambda (when configured with VPC access)
  • Not directly mountable over the public internet; it’s VPC‑scoped.

4.3 Availability and durability

• Self‑managed NFS:

  • Availability and durability depend on your design:
    • Single NFS server = SPOF
    • You can set up:
      • Active‑passive or active‑active HA clusters
      • Backups and offsite replication
      • Multi‑site replication (but you manage it)

• EFS:

  • Regional (multi‑AZ) by default:
    • Data is stored redundantly across multiple AZs.
  • Durability designed for 11 9’s of data durability (per AWS docs).
  • Automatically handles:
    • Hardware failures
    • AZ‑level issues (within design assumptions)

Implication:
EFS gives you strong HA and durability out‑of‑the‑box within a region. NFS can achieve similar or better, but only if you architect and maintain it accordingly.

4.4 Scalability and elasticity

• Self‑managed NFS:

  • Capacity is pre‑provisioned:
    • Add disks, expand volumes, manage RAID.
  • Performance scales with:
    • Server CPU/RAM/NIC
    • Storage configuration
  • Scaling often requires:
    • Downtime or complex online migration
    • Manual reconfiguration

• EFS:

  • Automatic capacity scaling:
    • Grows with data you store.
    • No volume resizing or capacity planning at the disk level.
  • Designed to scale to:
    • Thousands of concurrent clients
    • Petabytes of data (within service limits)
  • Throughput and IOPS scale with data size (Bursting mode) or can be explicitly provisioned.

Implication:
EFS is very attractive when workloads are unpredictable or grow quickly, or when you want to avoid manual capacity management.

4.5 Performance characteristics

Performance is nuanced. At a high level:

• NFS (self‑managed):

  • Performance is bounded by:
    • Server hardware
    • Network bandwidth (e.g., 1/10/25/40/100 Gbps)
    • Storage backend (local SSD, SAN, etc.)
  • You can optimize for:
    • Low latency (fast local SSDs)
    • High throughput (many disks / striped arrays)
  • You have more knobs:
    • NFS read/write sizes, number of threads
    • Filesystem mount options (noatime, async, etc.)

• EFS:

  • Performance modes (high‑level):

    • General Purpose:
      Lower latency for most applications; recommended for majority of workloads.
    • Max I/O:
      Higher aggregate throughput and IOPS; slightly higher latency; good for large, parallel workloads.

  • Throughput modes:

    • Bursting (default):
      • Throughput scales with the amount of data stored (baseline + burst credits).
    • Provisioned:
      • You explicitly choose the throughput in MiB/s, independent of data size.

  • Latency:

    • Network + EFS service latency; usually comparable to other network storage in AWS, but higher than local instance storage.

Implication:

• For ultra‑low‑latency workloads, local instance storage or EBS may be preferable.
• For typical shared file workloads, EFS performance is often sufficient and simpler to manage.
• For predictable, extremely high throughput, you might still prefer carefully tuned NFS systems or consider alternative architectures (e.g., S3, Lustre, or parallel file systems).

4.6 Security model

• Traditional NFS:

  • Access control often based on:
    • IP allowlists in /etc/exports
    • Unix user/group IDs matching across clients
    • Firewalls / network segmentation
  • NFSv4 can support:
    • Stronger authentication (Kerberos)
    • ACLs
  • Encryption:
    • Typically handled via:
      • VPN/SSH tunnels
      • IPSec
      • Filesystem‑level encryption

• EFS:

  • Multiple layers:
    • Network: VPC + security groups + NACLs
    • Encryption at rest: Native (AWS KMS) toggle
    • Encryption in transit: EFS mount helper supports TLS for NFS traffic
    • Access Points:
      • Provide application‑specific entry points with:
        • Fixed POSIX identity (UID/GID)
        • Restriction to a specific directory
    • IAM integration:
      • Control who can create, modify, delete filesystems and access points

Implication:
EFS provides strong, opinionated security integration with AWS primitives. Traditional NFS can be equally or more secure, but you must design and maintain those controls.

4.7 Pricing and cost model

• Self‑managed NFS:

  • You pay for:
    • Hardware or VM instances
    • Storage (local disks, SAN, cloud volumes like EBS)
    • Network egress (depending on environment)
    • Operational overhead (people/time)
  • Often cost‑effective at scale if:
    • You run in a stable environment
    • You have capacity to manage it
    • Hardware is amortized over time

• EFS:

  • You pay for:

    • Stored data per GB‑month, differentiated by storage classes:
      • Standard
      • Standard‑Infrequent Access (IA)
      • One Zone / One Zone-IA (if you choose single‑AZ mode)
    • Provisioned throughput (if you choose that mode)
    • Data transfer out of region or to the Internet (usual AWS rules)

  • Benefits:

    • No need to buy/maintain servers and disks
    • Scales down as you delete data—no paying for unused capacity

  • Potential drawbacks:

    • Can be more expensive per GB than raw block storage (EBS) or S3
    • For sustained, very large capacities, cost should be carefully analyzed vs. alternatives

Implication:
EFS often wins for:

• Use cases with variable or small/medium capacity
• Teams where operational simplicity has high value

Self‑managed NFS may be cheaper at very large, stable scale if you have the expertise to operate it efficiently.

5. Common Use Cases and When to Choose Which

5.1 When EFS is a strong choice

Use EFS when:

1. You’re all‑in on AWS (or mostly in AWS) and need shared POSIX storage.
2. You want minimal operational overhead:
   • No NFS server management
   • No disk provisioning or RAID setup
3. You need multi‑AZ, highly available shared storage.
4. Workloads:
   • Web applications with shared assets/config
   • Containerized workloads in ECS/EKS needing a shared volume
   • CI/CD pipelines needing shared build artifacts
   • User home directories for Linux bastion hosts
   • Data science workloads needing read‑heavy shared datasets (with moderate latency constraints)

5.2 When traditional NFS may be better

Consider traditional NFS (self‑managed or appliance) when:

1. You’re on‑premises or multi‑cloud:
   • You need a solution that spans environments, not just AWS.
2. You need very specific performance tuning:
   • Ultra‑low latency or extremely high, predictable throughput.
   • Specialized filesystems (ZFS, Lustre, GPFS, etc.).
3. You have strict regulatory or data residency requirements:
   • Must run in your own DC with particular hardware.
4. You require deep customization:
   • Custom NFS features/extensions
   • Exotic mount and filesystem options
   • Integration with existing enterprise storage gear

5.3 Hybrid: NFS in AWS vs EFS

Some teams deploy their own NFS on EC2 (using EBS / instance store). Why?

• To preserve:

  • Familiar workflows (e.g., using ZFS)
  • Direct control over:
    • Snapshots
    • Replication
    • Filesystem layout

• Trade‑offs:

  • Operational overhead vs. EFS’s simplicity
  • Need to design HA and backups
  • EBS scaling and EC2 instance sizing

In many cases, EFS is simpler for standard workloads, while self‑hosted NFS can be more flexible for specialized needs.

6. Practical Examples

6.1 Mounting EFS on an EC2 instance (Linux)

6.1.1 Prerequisites

• EFS filesystem created in your AWS region
• EFS mount target in the same VPC + subnet/AZ as your EC2 instance
• Security groups allow NFS (TCP port 2049)

6.1.2 Install the EFS mount helper

On Amazon Linux / RHEL / CentOS:

sudo yum install -y amazon-efs-utils

On Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y amazon-efs-utils

6.1.3 Mount the EFS filesystem

Use the filesystem ID (e.g., fs-12345678):

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/efs
sudo mount -t efs fs-12345678:/ /mnt/efs

With encryption in transit:

sudo mount -t efs -o tls fs-12345678:/ /mnt/efs

To make it persistent across reboots, add to /etc/fstab:

fs-12345678:/ /mnt/efs efs _netdev,tls 0 0

6.2 Mounting a traditional NFS share on Linux

Assume an NFS server at 10.0.1.10 exporting /srv/share.

6.2.1 Install NFS utilities

On RHEL/CentOS:

sudo yum install -y nfs-utils

On Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y nfs-common

6.2.2 Mount the NFS share

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/share
sudo mount -t nfs 10.0.1.10:/srv/share /mnt/share

To make it persistent:

10.0.1.10:/srv/share /mnt/share nfs defaults,_netdev 0 0

7. Infrastructure as Code Examples

7.1 Creating and mounting EFS with Terraform (AWS)

A simple example using Terraform (HCL):

provider "aws" {
  region = "us-east-1"
}

resource "aws_efs_file_system" "example" {
  creation_token = "my-efs-fs"
  encrypted      = true

  lifecycle_policy {
    transition_to_ia = "AFTER_30_DAYS"
  }

  tags = {
    Name = "my-efs"
  }
}

resource "aws_security_group" "efs_sg" {
  name        = "efs-sg"
  description = "Allow NFS"
  vpc_id      = aws_vpc.main.id

  ingress {
    protocol    = "tcp"
    from_port   = 2049
    to_port     = 2049
    cidr_blocks = [aws_vpc.main.cidr_block]
  }

  egress {
    protocol    = "-1"
    from_port   = 0
    to_port     = 0
    cidr_blocks = ["0.0.0.0/0"]
  }
}

resource "aws_efs_mount_target" "example_a" {
  file_system_id  = aws_efs_file_system.example.id
  subnet_id       = aws_subnet.private_a.id
  security_groups = [aws_security_group.efs_sg.id]
}

# Example EC2 instance that mounts EFS
resource "aws_instance" "app" {
  ami           = "ami-xxxxxxxx" # replace
  instance_type = "t3.micro"
  subnet_id     = aws_subnet.private_a.id

  vpc_security_group_ids = [aws_security_group.app_sg.id]

  user_data = <<-EOF
              #!/bin/bash
              yum install -y amazon-efs-utils
              mkdir -p /mnt/efs
              echo "${aws_efs_file_system.example.id}:/ /mnt/efs efs _netdev,tls 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
              mount -a
              EOF
}

This example:

• Creates an encrypted EFS filesystem.
• Enables lifecycle policy to move cold data to IA after 30 days.
• Exposes it via a mount target in a private subnet.
• Mounts it on an EC2 instance via cloud‑init user data.

7.2 Automating NFS server with Ansible (example)

For a self‑managed NFS deployment, an Ansible snippet might look like:

- hosts: nfs_server
  become: yes
  tasks:
    - name: Install NFS packages
      apt:
        name: nfs-kernel-server
        state: present
      when: ansible_os_family == "Debian"

    - name: Create export directory
      file:
        path: /srv/share
        state: directory
        owner: root
        group: root
        mode: '0755'

    - name: Configure exports
      copy:
        dest: /etc/exports
        content: |
          /srv/share 10.0.0.0/16(rw,sync,no_root_squash)

    - name: Export NFS shares
      command: exportfs -ra

    - name: Ensure NFS server is running
      service:
        name: nfs-kernel-server
        state: started
        enabled: yes

Clients could then mount nfs_server:/srv/share as shown earlier.

8. Migration Considerations: NFS to EFS

If you’re moving from traditional NFS (on‑prem or EC2) to EFS, consider:

8.1 Network connectivity

• If source is on‑prem:

  • You need a secure connection to AWS:
    • Site‑to‑Site VPN
    • AWS Direct Connect
  • Data transfer times can be large; plan accordingly.

• If source is within AWS:

  • Ensure both source and EFS are in:
    • Peered VPCs or same VPC
    • Compatible security groups and NACLs

8.2 Data transfer methods

Common approaches:

1. rsync over NFS‑mounted paths

   • Mount both source NFS and EFS on a migration host.
   • Use rsync to copy data:

     rsync -aHAX --info=progress2 /mnt/nfs/ /mnt/efs/
     

2. AWS DataSync

   • Purpose‑built for migrating data to AWS storage services, including EFS.
   • Handles:
     • Incremental syncs
     • Bandwidth throttling
     • Verification and reporting
   • Often the best option for large datasets.

3. Custom tools or backup/restore mechanisms

   • Existing enterprise backup solutions might support restoring to NFS/EFS.

8.3 Application cutover

• Aim for minimal downtime:
  1. Perform an initial bulk copy.
  2. Run one or more incremental syncs to capture changes.
  3. Schedule a final maintenance window:
     • Stop writing to old NFS.
     • Final incremental sync.
     • Point applications to EFS mount.
• Validate:
  • Permissions and ownership (UID/GID)
  • Symlinks and hardlinks
  • Application behavior under EFS latency and throughput characteristics

8.4 Cost and performance validation

• Before full migration:
  • Benchmark key operations (e.g., reading model files, serving assets, running builds).
  • Estimate EFS monthly cost:
    • Stored GB
    • Expected throughput (bursting vs provisioned)
    • Data lifecycle (Standard vs IA)

Adjust:

• Performance mode (General Purpose vs Max I/O)
• Throughput mode
• Lifecycle policies to optimize cost.

9. Summary: Decision Matrix

A quick reference table to compare NFS vs EFS:

Conclusion

NFS and EFS address the same fundamental need—shared file storage over a network—but at different layers:

• NFS is the underlying protocol and an approach you can implement anywhere, with deep control but full operational responsibility.
• EFS is AWS’s managed NFS‑compatible service, trading some low‑level flexibility for simplicity, elasticity, built‑in HA, and tight integration with the AWS ecosystem.

Use EFS when:

• You’re primarily in AWS.
• You want shared storage without managing servers or disks.
• You value high availability and elasticity more than deep customization.

Use traditional NFS when:

• You must operate on‑premises or across multiple clouds.
• You require specialized performance, hardware, or filesystem features.
• You’re willing and able to manage the infrastructure yourself.

Understanding these trade‑offs lets you choose the right tool for each workload rather than treating “NFS vs EFS” as a binary choice. In many real‑world environments, you’ll end up using both: NFS in your data centers or specialized clusters, and EFS for cloud‑native applications in AWS.

Further Resources

• NFS (general)

  • RFC 1813 – NFS Version 3 Specification
  • RFC 7530 – NFS Version 4 Protocol
  • Linux NFS HOWTO: https://tldp.org/HOWTO/NFS-HOWTO/

• Amazon EFS Documentation

  • EFS Product Page: https://aws.amazon.com/efs/
  • EFS User Guide: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/efs/latest/ug/whatisefs.html
  • Security with EFS: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/efs/latest/ug/security-considerations.html
  • AWS DataSync for EFS: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/datasync/latest/userguide/using-efs.html

• Design and Best Practices

  • AWS Architecture Blog (search for “EFS best practices”)
  • “NFS Illustrated” (various technical deep‑dives and whitepapers)
  • Vendor docs for NFS appliances (NetApp, Dell EMC, etc.) for reference architectures