Can we have database datafiles and logfiles in S3 bucket and SQL installed on windows OS

Question

We are using windows server. On that windows server we have SQL server installed. We are planning to upgrade that to SQL 2022. Now I want to know the feasibility to move databases to S3 bucket. Is it feasible to have mdf and ldf files of the SQL databases on S3 bucket directly and SQL server installed on windows server which is hosted on AWS.

Accepted Answer

You can theoretically store those files on S3, yes. But it won't work well because S3 is object storage and can't natively be mounted directly to the file system in a way that will be performant for your database server.

You would be better off using EFS or EBS. The best option would be to get off EC2 and switch to a managed solution like RDS for SQL Server: https://aws.amazon.com/rds/sqlserver/

Answer

May I ask why do you want to store Database files on S3?

You can not store MDF and LDF files on S3 and have those files actively in use by SQL Server, because S3 is object storage and every time object is changed a new version is uploaded. Block file on the other hand allow for a single block to be changed without the need for the whole file to be uploaded.

Can we have database datafiles and logfiles in S3 bucket and SQL installed on windows OS

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