Block storage
Block storage is a storage model that provides persistent, independently addressable fixed-size blocks that systems attach, format, and manage as volumes.
Architecting an Apache Iceberg Lakehouse
Block storage provides persistent storage as independently addressable fixed-size blocks that operating systems or applications assemble into volumes and filesystems.
- How it is used
- Supports Iceberg lakehouses where high-performance access, legacy Hadoop compatibility, or private-cloud infrastructure outweighs operational simplicity.
- How deep it goes
- Explains block addressing, filesystem assembly, locality, replication, scaling, recovery, and deployment tradeoffs without specifying implementation procedures.
- Examples
- Uses HDFS, Hadoop environments, private-cloud installations, and a file distributed across multiple blocks as concrete examples.
- What you can do after
- Evaluate block-storage suitability for Iceberg deployments by comparing performance, scalability, recovery effort, security, and cost.
Read how Architecting an Apache Iceberg Lakehouse explains block storage →
Amazon Web Services in Action, Third Edition: An in-depth guide to AWS
Block storage is a storage model that presents persistent data capacity as fixed-size blocks addressed by a computing system.
- How it is used
- Supports legacy filesystems, relational databases, and EC2 operating-system volumes when migrating applications that cannot use object storage.
- How deep it goes
- Explains filesystem mediation, EBS attachment, instance-store loss, volume types, billing, resizing, and snapshots without detailing filesystem internals.
- Examples
- Uses legacy-application migration, database persistence, EBS attachment, CloudFormation resources, instance-store caching, and incremental snapshots.
- What you can do after
- Configure EBS volumes with CloudFormation and select persistent or temporary storage for an EC2 workload.
Related concepts
- object storecontrasts with · An object store is a storage system that stores and retrieves data as independently addressable objects containing content and associated metadata.
- Amazon Elastic Compute Cloudused by · Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is an Amazon Web Services service that provides resizable virtual computing capacity through configurable virtual machine instances.
- instance store volumeincludes · An instance store volume is an ephemeral block storage volume provided by an EC2 instance store.
- Hadoop Distributed File Systempart of · The Hadoop Distributed File System is a distributed file system designed to store large datasets across clusters of commodity computers.
- Apache Icebergused by · Apache Iceberg is an open table format for managing large analytical datasets with metadata, schema evolution, snapshots, and transactional operations across distributed or object storage.
These guides are generated from the text of Manning books by Manning's knowledge graph and link to the sections they draw on. The full books are available on liveBook and at manning.com.

