Instance Store is a physical disk directly attached to the host server where your EC2 instance runs. Unlike EBS, it is not a network drive — it is actual hardware on the same physical machine as your instance.

This makes it significantly faster than EBS, but it comes with a critical trade-off: the data is temporary.

EBS vs Instance Store

Feature EBS Instance Store
Type Network drive Physical drive (on the host server)
Speed Good Much faster — millions of IOPS possible
Data on stop Survives Lost permanently
Data on termination Survives (if delete on termination is off) Lost permanently
Data on hardware failure Survives Lost permanently
Use for Persistent data Temporary data only

Key Characteristics

High I/O Performance

Because the disk is physically attached to the server rather than connected over a network, there is no network latency. This makes Instance Store suitable for workloads that require very high IOPS — much higher than what EBS can deliver.

Ephemeral Storage

Instance Store is ephemeral, meaning the data only exists as long as the instance is running on that specific physical host.

Stop instance     → Data is gone
Terminate instance → Data is gone
Hardware failure   → Data is gone

There is no way to recover data from Instance Store once it is lost.

Backups Are Your Responsibility

AWS does not back up Instance Store data. If you need to retain anything stored there, you must copy it to EBS, S3, or another persistent storage yourself.

What to Use It For

Instance Store is suitable for data that is genuinely temporary and can be recreated if lost: