6.2 AWS Snow Family — Snowcone, Snowball, and Snowmobile
Key Takeaways
- The Snow Family provides physical devices for offline data transfer when network transfer is impractical due to bandwidth, time, or cost constraints.
- Snowcone (8-14 TB) is portable for edge computing and small transfers; Snowball Edge (80-210 TB) is for large data migrations and edge compute; Snowmobile (100 PB) is for exabyte-scale transfers.
- Rule of thumb: if network transfer takes more than 1 week, consider Snow Family devices.
- Snowball Edge comes in Storage Optimized (80 TB, 40 vCPUs) and Compute Optimized (42 TB, 104 vCPUs) configurations.
- All Snow devices support encryption with KMS keys and provide tamper-resistant enclosures.
Last updated: March 2026
AWS Snow Family — Snowcone, Snowball, and Snowmobile
Quick Answer: Snowcone = small edge + transfer (8-14 TB). Snowball Edge = large data transfer + edge compute (80-210 TB). Snowmobile = exabyte-scale transfer (100 PB). Rule of thumb: if network transfer takes >1 week, use Snow Family.
Snow Family Comparison
| Device | Storage | Compute | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| Snowcone | 8 TB HDD or 14 TB SSD | 2 vCPUs, 4 GB RAM | Edge computing, small data transfers, IoT |
| Snowball Edge Storage Optimized | 80 TB | 40 vCPUs, 80 GB RAM | Large data migrations |
| Snowball Edge Compute Optimized | 42 TB | 104 vCPUs, 416 GB RAM | Edge ML inference, video analysis |
| Snowmobile | 100 PB | N/A | Exabyte-scale data center migrations |
When to Use Snow Family
| Data Volume | Network Speed | Transfer Time (Network) | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 TB | 100 Mbps | ~9 days | Snowcone or Snowball |
| 100 TB | 1 Gbps | ~12 days | Snowball Edge |
| 1 PB | 10 Gbps | ~12 days | Snowball Edge (multiple) |
| 10 PB | 10 Gbps | ~120 days | Multiple Snowball Edge |
| 50+ PB | Any | Months-years | Snowmobile |
Security
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| Encryption | All data encrypted with KMS keys |
| Tamper-resistant | Physical security with tamper-evident enclosures |
| Tracking | GPS tracking, TPM chip |
| Erasure | AWS performs secure erasure after data transfer |
| Chain of custody | Tracked from shipping to receipt |
Edge Computing with Snow
Snow devices can run:
- EC2 instances (using AMIs deployed to the device)
- Lambda functions (via IoT Greengrass)
- EKS Anywhere on Snowball Edge for Kubernetes at the edge
On the Exam: "Transfer 50 TB of data with limited internet bandwidth" → Snowball Edge. "Run ML inference at a remote location with no internet" → Snowball Edge Compute Optimized. "Migrate an entire data center (exabytes of data)" → Snowmobile.
Test Your Knowledge
A company needs to transfer 80 TB of data to AWS, but their internet connection would take over 2 weeks. What is the MOST efficient solution?
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B
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D
Test Your Knowledge
Which Snow Family device is appropriate for an exabyte-scale data center migration?
A
B
C
D