Snowball is a physical device AWS ships to you for moving huge amounts of data into (or out of) AWS when transferring over the network would take too long or cost too much.
When the network isn’t enough
The tell is petabytes of data plus a slow or limited internet connection, or a tight deadline. You load the device and ship it back; AWS imports the data into S3. Compare with DataSync (online file transfer) and Direct Connect (dedicated network link). Massive offline transfer → Snowball.
Test yourself
A company must move 80 TB of data to AWS but has a slow internet connection that would take months to upload. What’s the best option?
- AWS DataSync
- AWS Snowball
- S3 Transfer Acceleration
- AWS Direct Connect
👉 Click to reveal the answer & explanation
Correct answer: B. Snowball is a physical device for large offline data transfer when the network is too slow — ideal for 80 TB over a slow link. DataSync (A) and Transfer Acceleration (C) still depend on the slow network; Direct Connect (D) takes time to provision and is ongoing, not a one-time bulk move.
Related topics
AWS DataSync · Amazon S3 · Direct Connect
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