AWS Storage Gateway vs Minio Comparison: Everything You Need to Know Before Choosing

AWS Storage Gateway is a hybrid cloud storage service from Amazon Web Services that gives on-premises applications seamless access to virtually unlimited cloud storage. Many organisations retain applications, backup software and file workflows that expect local storage protocols, yet want to take advantage of the scalability, durability and cost profile of the cloud. Storage Gateway bridges this gap by running as a virtual machine, hardware appliance or cloud instance in the customer's environment, presenting standard file, block or tape interfaces locally while storing data in AWS services such as Amazon S3, Amazon FSx and Amazon EBS snapshots. A local cache keeps frequently accessed data close to users for low-latency performance, while the bulk of the data is held in the cloud. The service comes in several gateway types. Amazon S3 File Gateway presents NFS and SMB file shares that store files as native objects in S3, supporting use cases such as backups, archives and data lakes. Amazon FSx File Gateway provides low-latency on-premises access to fully managed Windows file shares in Amazon FSx for Windows File Server. Tape Gateway emulates a virtual tape library, allowing existing backup applications such as Veeam, Commvault and Veritas to write to virtual tapes stored in S3 and archived to S3 Glacier, eliminating physical tape handling. Volume Gateway offers iSCSI block storage volumes backed by cloud snapshots, useful for disaster recovery. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and the service integrates with AWS Identity and Access Management, CloudWatch monitoring, CloudTrail auditing and AWS Backup for centralised protection policies. Gateways can be deployed on VMware, Hyper-V and KVM hypervisors or as EC2 instances, and are managed from the AWS console. Storage Gateway is used by enterprises, public sector bodies, healthcare and media organisations modernising backup, archiving and file services. Pricing is usage-based and not published in this listing, with no free version or free trial details provided.