AWS Snow Family

for data migration in and out of AWS:

Snowcone

Snowball Edge

Snowmobile

for Edge computing data migration:

Snowcone

Snowball Edge

These are offline devices that perform data migration for migration that would take more than a week by network transfer.

Snowcone and Snowball Edge are sent by post using a physical route rather than digitally.

Snowball Edge, used for TB or PB data transfer

pay per data transfer job

2 versions

Snowball Edge Storage Optimized:

80TB max of HDD capacity for block volume and S3 compatible object storage

Snowball Edge Compute Optimized:

42TB of HDD capacity for block volume and S3 compatible object storage

use case for Edge:

large data cloud migration, Disaster recovery prep, disaster recovery action

For Snowcone:

a much smaller device, can withstand harsh environments, very light and secure

used for smaller size transfers, up to 8TB storage

10 times less than snowball edge.

you must provide own battery and cables

can be sent to AWS in post or via internet – and use AWS DataSync to send data.

Snowmobile is a truck – very high-scale transfers.

request snowball devices on the AWS website

install a snowball client on servers

connect the snowball to your servers, then copy the file,

then ship the device back

many EBs of data 1EB = 1PB

very high security, staffed,

best for more than 10PB data transfer

Edge Computing:

somewhere creating data or needing data but has no internet access or limited access…

snowball edge or snowcone can be embedded into your edge site

so it gives you a way to transfer data despite having no strong internet connection

The Snowcone and Edge can run EC2 instances and Lambda functions!

good for preprocessing data, transcoding media screens, machine learning at the edge

Snowcone 2 CPUs 4GB RAM, wired/wi-fi, powered by usb-c or optional battery

Snowcone Edge:

many more vCPUs up to 52vCPUs and 208 GiB RAM
optional GPU
object storage clustering available

can get discount pricing 1 or 3 years

Also AWS OpsHub – management software for snow family

This enables you to manage the device from your client pc or laptop, you install on your client