Configuration of AWS FSx Windows File Server

Venio FSX Configuration

• Deployment type: Single-AZ 2
• Storage Type: HDD
• Storage Capacity: Depending on current EBS storage, factor in for future growth.
• Throughput Capacity: Venio performs at best when 256 MBps is selected.
• Authentication: via AWS-managed AD
• Encrypted: With default AWS/FSX key
• DNS: User-friendly DNS alias; you may have to manually create a CNAME record in DNS if it doesn't do it for you.

Benchmarking

Note: We originally started with 128 MBps but then bumped it up to 256 MBps after Venio noticed a few files were erroring out (it was a very small percentage, I think around 1-2%). As the FSx shares grow, they may need to be increased to 512 MBps to keep up with throughput requirements (more data = more connections to the data in our case).

Here are the performance metrics for EBS st1 throughput optimized drives (what we previously used) vs. the performance metrics for FSx. FSx can burst way higher. Additionally, the throughput is a fixed rate ($2.20 per MBps/mo) for FSx, so increasing the throughput even higher is a marginal cost when you're hosting large amounts of data.

Here is the AWS link to FSx for Windows File Server performance.