Moving Data Into AWS

The Idea

First do the arithmetic: days = TB × 8×10¹² ÷ (link bits per second × usable share) ÷ 86,400. Online, DataSync copies NFS, SMB, HDFS or object storage into S3, EFS or FSx, encrypting and verifying the data. Transfer Family gives partners SFTP, FTPS, FTP or AS2 endpoints in front of S3 or EFS. S3 Transfer Acceleration brings distant uploads in through edge locations. When the network is too slow, data travels on devices.

Real-World Example

50 TB over a 1 Gbps link at 80% takes 5.8 days, so DataSync is fine. 100 TB takes 11.6 days; copying it onto a 210 TB Snowball Edge over the 10 Gbps LAN takes 1.2 days before shipping.

The Tradeoff

Snowball Edge is closed to new customers (as of October 2026); they use DataSync, or bring drives to an AWS Data Transfer Terminal. Online copies share the link with production, so throttle them.

Hands-On

# how many days does the network need?
tb, gbps, usable = 50, 1, 0.8
seconds = tb * 8e12 / (gbps * 1e9 * usable)
print(round(seconds / 86400, 1))  # 5.8

tb, gbps, usable = 100, 1, 0.8
seconds = tb * 8e12 / (gbps * 1e9 * usable)
print(round(seconds / ___, 1))  # days

Sources

• What is AWS DataSync? — AWS DataSync User Guide
• What is AWS Transfer Family? — AWS Transfer Family User Guide
• Configuring fast, secure file transfers using Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration — Amazon S3 User Guide
• What is Snowball Edge? — AWS Snowball Edge Developer Guide
• What is Data Transfer Terminal? — AWS Data Transfer Terminal User Guide