S3 Files and the changing face of S3

The article contrasts s3fs, a FUSE filesystem backed directly by S3, with AWS's approach using EFS as an intermediate layer.

s3fs runs non-atomic file operations on the client machine, which can leave S3 buckets in uncertain states if the client crashes.

AWS's EFS-based method stores operations durably in the middle layer and should offer lower latency by using SSD-backed storage.

The EFS middle layer decouples file-system operations from direct S3 object writes, improving safety and performance.