How do I back up and restore my Amazon EFS file system?

Resolution

It's a best practice to use AWS Backup to back up your EFS file system and protect your data.

Back up your EFS file system with AWS Backup

Complete the following steps:

1. Open the AWS Backup console.
2. In the navigation pane, under My account, choose Settings.
3. In the Service opt-in section, choose Configure resources.
4. On the Configure resources page, turn on EFS, and then choose Confirm.
5. Choose Dashboard, and then choose Create on-demand backup.
6. On the Resource Type menu, choose EFS. Then, select your file system ID.
7. In the Backup window section, choose Create backup now to immediately initiate a backup. You can see your saved resource on the Protected resources page.
8. Enter a Total retention period value.
9. (Optional) Enter a transition to Cold storage value.
10. For Total retention period, select Days, and then enter the number of days that you want to retain the backup.
11. For Backup vault, select one of the preexisting vaults, or choose Create new vault. If you choose Create new vault, then a new page opens to create a vault. After you create a new vault, return to the Create on-demand backup page.
12. For IAM role, choose Default role.
13. (Optional) To assign tags to your on-demand backup, choose Add tag. Then, enter a key and optional value.
14. Choose Create on-demand backup.
15. On the Jobs page, select the backup job ID for your resource to confirm that the backup job's status changed to Completed.

Note: When you use the Amazon EFS console to create a file system, automatic backups are turned on by default. You can edit the backup plan settings to choose how often you want to back up your file system. To immediately back up your file system, you can create an on-demand backup.

Restore your EFS file system with AWS Backup

Complete the following steps:

1. Open the AWS Backup console.
2. In the navigation pane, choose Vaults.
3. Select your backup vault, and then select the latest completed backup.
4. Choose Actions, and then choose Restore.
5. On the Restore backup page, configure your backup:
   Resource Type: Choose Full restore to restore the entire file system, including all root level folders and files. Choose Item-level restore to restore up to five specific items within your file system.
   Restore Location: To restore to the source file system, choose Restore to directory in source file system. To restore to a different file system, choose Restore to a new file system.
   File system type: Choose Regional. It's a best practice to use this option because it stores the data across multiple Availability Zones.
   Performance: Choose General purpose.
   To encrypt your file system, choose Enable encryption. Select the AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) key that you want to use from the list. Primary key IDs and aliases appear in the list after you create them on the AWS KMS console.
6. Choose Default role, and then choose Restore backup.
7. To check the status of your restored EFS file system, navigate to the Jobs page. Choose the Restore jobs tab to find your file system.
8. After the job status changes to Completed, open the Amazon EFS console. In the navigation pane, choose File systems to see your restored file system.
   Note: You can mount the restored file system on an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance. From the instance, you can access the restored files and directories.

Related information

Backup performance

Backup consistency