EFS IA timer

Question

The documentation states that EFS Lifecycle Management uses an "internal timer" to determine how long since a file was last accessed. If I have an existing EFS with old files, and then today I enable Lifecycle Management what value will the timer be?  -- will it be zero for all files as I enabled Lifecycle Management today, or is the timer operation unrelated to Lifecycle Management and was set to zero when each file was originally created?

Answer

BBA,  
EFS tracks the last access time for all files, regardless of whether or not you have Lifecycle Management enabled for your file system.  If you decided to turn on Lifecycle Management for an existing file system, let's say with the '30 days since last access' policy, any files that have not been accessed for 30 days or longer would immediately become eligible for Lifecycle Management and begin to move to EFS IA.  In other words, you wouldn't need to wait an additional 30 days for your files to move to EFS IA.  
  
Let us know if you have any additional questions.  
  
--Joe  
Amazon EFS team

EFS IA timer

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