AWS Snow Family
A family of physical devices - Snowcone, Snowball Edge, and Snowmobile - for transferring massive datasets to AWS when network transfer is impractical, with built-in edge computing capabilities
Overview
AWS Snow Family is a suite of services that use physical devices for offline data transfer and edge computing. The family includes three device types - Snowcone (8-14 TB), Snowball Edge (80-210 TB), and Snowmobile (100 PB) - designed for environments with limited network bandwidth or petabyte-scale data migrations. The devices also support edge computing by running EC2 instances and Lambda functions directly on the hardware, enabling data processing in locations without internet connectivity.
Three Device Types and Selection Criteria
Snowcone is the smallest device, weighing just 2.1 kg and capable of battery-powered operation. It comes in HDD (8 TB) and SSD (14 TB) models, making it ideal for field data collection via drones or vehicles. A pre-installed DataSync agent automatically transfers data once network connectivity is restored. Snowball Edge offers two models: Storage Optimized (210 TB, 24 vCPU) and Compute Optimized (28 TB, 104 vCPU, optional GPU). Its primary use case is migrating tens to hundreds of terabytes, and multiple units can be clustered to scale both processing power and storage capacity. Snowmobile is a 45-foot shipping container trailer that transfers up to 100 PB in a single trip, used for full data center migrations and exabyte-scale projects. As a general guideline, choose Snowcone for under 10 TB, Snowball Edge for 10-500 TB, and multiple Snowball Edge units or Snowmobile for 500 TB and above.
Data Transfer Workflow and Encryption
The Snow device workflow consists of five steps: create a job in the console, receive the shipped device, copy data to it, ship it back, and AWS imports the data into S3. All data on the device is protected with 256-bit encryption, with keys managed by KMS. Upon arrival at AWS, data is imported into S3 at a secure facility, and the device is then wiped clean using NIST 800-88 compliant methods. Data can be copied using AWS OpsHub (a GUI tool) or the Snowball Edge Client (CLI). The device can also be exposed as an NFS mount point, allowing existing backup tools to copy files directly. An S3-compatible API is also available, enabling data transfer via the aws s3 cp command. Transfer speeds depend on the device's network interface (10 GbE, 25 GbE, or 100 GbE) and local network bandwidth - a Snowball Edge with a 25 GbE connection can theoretically transfer approximately 20 TB per day.
Edge Computing and Operational Patterns
Snowball Edge Compute Optimized can run EC2-compatible instances (sbe-c, sbe-g), enabling compute processing in environments without internet connectivity. Real-world use cases include visual inspection on factory production lines, sensor data analysis aboard ships, and geological data processing at mining sites - all scenarios requiring machine learning inference and data preprocessing where cloud connectivity is unavailable. Lambda functions can also run on the device, and when combined with IoT Greengrass, you can build event-driven processing pipelines at the edge. Models equipped with the GPU option (NVIDIA V100) deliver high-performance machine learning inference. Clustering multiple Snowball Edge units creates an S3-compatible object storage pool of up to 45 TB, and the cluster can also serve as distributed processing worker nodes. For a deeper understanding of data migration strategies, related books (Amazon) are a helpful resource. Pricing is based on a daily rate per device - Snowball Edge Storage Optimized costs approximately $30 USD per day, with shipping charges billed separately. Commitment discounts for long-term use (1-year or 3-year) are also available.