What type of storage does Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) provide?

Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) provides block-level storage, which is designed to be used with Amazon EC2 instances. Block storage means that data is stored in fixed-sized blocks, and each block can be managed independently. This type of storage is particularly well-suited for applications that require a database or file system, where fine-grained access to data is necessary, enabling random access to any block of data as needed.

In the context of how storage types are defined, block-level storage provides lower latency and higher performance, making it suitable for applications that demand fast access to data. Additionally, EBS volumes can be attached to EC2 instances, offering persistent storage that remains available even when the instance is stopped.

Other storage types mentioned, such as file-level storage, object storage, and temporary storage, serve different use cases. File-level storage organizes data in a hierarchical directory structure and is more user-friendly for general file sharing. Object storage is designed for storing and retrieving large amounts of data in a flat structure, ideal for unstructured data like images and multimedia files. Temporary storage, often associated with instance store volumes, is ephemeral and loses data once the instance is stopped or terminated.

Understanding these distinctions helps clarify why block-level storage, specifically