ZeroFS vs AWS EFS Benchmarks
Performance comparison conducted on AWS EC2 t3.xlarge (4 vCPUs, 16 GiB RAM) in eu-north-1 region.
Test Setup
- VM: AWS EC2 t3.xlarge, eu-north-1
- ZeroFS Storage: AWS S3 Standard
- EFS Configuration: General Purpose performance mode, Elastic throughput mode
- EFS Mount: NFS 4.1 with AWS recommended parameters
- Benchmark suite: github.com/Barre/ZeroFS/bench
- Operations per test: 10,000
Architecture Differences
ZeroFS: Direct S3-only architecture. No additional infrastructure required. Full POSIX compliance.
AWS EFS: Managed NFS service.
Performance at a Glance
Key Performance Differences
Benchmark Results
Synthetic Benchmarks
| Test | ZeroFS | AWS EFS | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sequential Writes | |||
| Operations/sec | 230.71 | 108.13 | 2.1x faster |
| Mean latency | 4.32ms | 9.22ms | 2.1x slower |
| Success rate | 100% | 100% | - |
| Data Modifications | |||
| Operations/sec | 308.60 | 181.52 | 1.7x faster |
| Mean latency | 3.23ms | 5.50ms | 1.7x slower |
| Success rate | 100% | 100% | - |
| Single File Append | |||
| Operations/sec | 300.91 | 91.11 | 3.3x faster |
| Mean latency | 3.31ms | 10.95ms | 3.3x slower |
| Success rate | 100% | 100% | - |
| Empty Files | |||
| Operations/sec | 294.87 | 195.61 | 1.5x faster |
| Mean latency | 2.74ms | 4.62ms | 1.7x slower |
| Success rate | 100% | 100% | - |
| Empty Directories | |||
| Operations/sec | 446.61 | 219.01 | 2.0x faster |
| Mean latency | 2.23ms | 4.55ms | 2.0x slower |
| Success rate | 100% | 100% | - |
| Random Reads | |||
| Operations/sec | 415.68 | 1,242.61 | 3.0x slower |
| Mean latency | 2.40ms | 0.80ms | 3.0x faster |
| Success rate | 100% | 100% | - |
Real-World Operations
| Operation | ZeroFS | AWS EFS | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Git clone | 3.9s | 5.0s | ZeroFS repository |
| Cargo build | 5m 45s | 4m 56s | Development profile |
| tar -xf (ZFS source) | 40.0s | 88.1s | ZFS 2.3.3 release tarball |
Cost Analysis
Storage Cost Comparison
Based on AWS pricing (eu-north-1 region):
AWS EFS Pricing:
- Storage: $0.30/GB-Month (Standard/SSD storage)
- Read operations: $0.03/GB transferred
- Write operations: $0.06/GB transferred
AWS S3 Standard Pricing (for ZeroFS):
- Storage: $0.023/GB-Month (first 50TB)
- EC2-to-S3 data transfer within same region: Free
- S3 API operations: Minimal
Raw Storage Cost Comparison
| Storage Size | ZeroFS (S3) Monthly | AWS EFS Monthly | Cost Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 GB | $2.30 | $30.00 | 13x more expensive |
| 1 TB | $23.00 | $300.00 | 13x more expensive |
| 10 TB | $230.00 | $3,000.00 | 13x more expensive |
| 100 TB | $2,300.00 | $30,000.00 | 13x more expensive |
Annual Storage Cost Projection
| Storage Size | ZeroFS (S3) Annual | AWS EFS Annual | Annual Savings with ZeroFS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 GB | $27.60 | $360.00 | $332.40 |
| 1 TB | $276.00 | $3,600.00 | $3,324.00 |
| 10 TB | $2,760.00 | $36,000.00 | $33,240.00 |
| 100 TB | $27,600.00 | $360,000.00 | $332,400.00 |
Important Notes:
- ZeroFS: Primary cost is S3 storage at $0.023/GB-month. EC2-to-S3 data transfer is free within the same AWS region. S3 API costs are typically negligible.
- AWS EFS: Storage cost is 13x higher at $0.30/GB-month, PLUS additional charges for all data transfers ($0.03/GB for reads, $0.06/GB for writes).
- The comparison above shows storage costs only. EFS's data transfer charges can significantly increase total costs depending on usage patterns.
Key Observations
ZeroFS
- 2-3x faster for write operations
- 2x faster for directory operations
- 13x lower storage costs ($0.023/GB vs $0.30/GB)
- No data transfer charges within same AWS region
- Direct S3 architecture
AWS EFS
- 3x faster for random read operations
- Additional charges for data transfers ($0.03/GB read, $0.06/GB write)
Technical Details
Sequential Writes
Creates files in sequence. Tests metadata performance and write throughput.
ZeroFS: 10,000 files in 43.3 seconds
AWS EFS: 10,000 files in 92.5 seconds (2.1x slower)
Data Modifications
Random writes to existing files. Tests consistency and caching.
ZeroFS: 10,000 operations in 32.4 seconds
AWS EFS: 10,000 operations in 55.1 seconds (1.7x slower)
Single File Append
Appends to a single file. Tests lock contention and write ordering.
ZeroFS: 10,000 operations in 33.2 seconds
AWS EFS: 10,000 operations in 109.8 seconds (3.3x slower)
Empty File Creation
Pure metadata operations without data writes.
ZeroFS: 10,000 files in 33.9 seconds
AWS EFS: 10,000 files in 51.1 seconds (1.5x slower)
Empty Directory Creation
Tests directory metadata operations.
ZeroFS: 10,000 directories in 22.4 seconds
AWS EFS: 10,000 directories in 45.7 seconds (2.0x slower)
Random Reads
Tests read performance from various file positions.
ZeroFS: 415.68 ops/sec
AWS EFS: 1,242.61 ops/sec (3x faster)
Git Clone
Tests mixed read/write patterns with metadata operations.
ZeroFS: Completed in 3.9 seconds
AWS EFS: Completed in 5.0 seconds (1.3x slower)
Compilation Workload
Rust compilation of ZeroFS codebase. Tests mixed read/write patterns.
ZeroFS: 5 minutes 45 seconds
AWS EFS: 4 minutes 56 seconds (1.2x faster)
Archive Extraction
Extracting ZFS 2.3.3 source tarball. Tests sequential file creation with varying sizes.
ZeroFS: 40.0 seconds
AWS EFS: 88.1 seconds (2.2x slower)
Summary
In our benchmarks, ZeroFS demonstrated 2-3x faster performance for write operations while using S3 storage that costs 13x less than EFS. AWS EFS showed better random read performance (3x faster) but at significantly higher cost.
The tests revealed substantial cost differences: EFS charges $0.30/GB-month for storage compared to S3's $0.023/GB-month, plus additional fees for data transfers. For a 10TB deployment, this translates to an annual difference of over $33,000 in storage costs alone.