In media production, AI/ML, and high-performance computing (HPC), fast, affordable access to massive datasets is critical—whether you're streaming 4K video into a render farm, managing VFX assets, or training large AI models.

Many teams turned to FSx for Lustre, drawn by Amazon’s promise of high performance and easy S3 integration.

But is FSx for Lustre still the best choice today, given the demands of modern data-intensive workflows?

In this post, we'll explore how FSx for Lustre compares to alternatives like Mountpoint for Amazon S3 and Object Mount—and why teams that need serious high performance are reconsidering their path.

Why teams turned to FSx for Lustre.

When Amazon introduced FSx for Lustre back in 2018, it offered a compelling idea: bring the capabilities of a traditional high-performance file system—based on the open-source Lustre project—into the cloud, while bridging directly to S3 object storage.

For teams in media production, AI/ML, and HPC, it promised the best of both worlds: higher throughput for massive workloads, paired with the scalability and durability of S3.

Through a data repository association, FSx allowed teams to temporarily import data from S3, run workloads on the FSx file system, and export the entire output dataset back to S3 when finished. This helped teams access faster file storage without paying to permanently store all their data in FSx.

However, even with this model, costs remained high compared to working directly from S3.
And the performance fell short of expectations: teams had to manually stage data, carefully provision capacity, and manage scratch storage risks just to achieve reasonable throughput.

While these tradeoffs were tolerated when alternatives were limited, today's modern data-intensive workflows across cloud, hybrid, and on-prem environments make the weaknesses of FSx for Lustre harder to ignore.

Mountpoint: lower costs, lower performance.

To help address the cost side of FSx for Lustre, Amazon introduced Mountpoint for Amazon S3 more recently in 2023—a tool that allows direct access to S3 buckets without requiring data staging. Mountpoint is free to use (you only pay for S3 storage) and simplifies access to cloud data.

But Mountpoint failed to solve the real performance challenges.

• It supports only basic file operations like listing, reading, and creating files—not modifying, renaming, deleting directories, using symlinks, or file locking.
  
  
• It processes only a single file per thread and struggles to saturate available bandwidth, offering even lower performance than FSx for Lustre.

As a result, Mountpoint is not a viable replacement for FSx when it comes to serious, high-performance workloads in media production, AI/ML, or HPC.

Introducing Object Mount.

Neither FSx for Lustre nor Mountpoint for Amazon S3 fully meet the needs of today’s data-intensive teams.

Object Mount offers a different approach—one that combines the strengths of both without the downsides.

Built for cloud, hybrid, and on-premises environments, Object Mount enables high-throughput access to S3-compatible object storage, supporting both sequential and parallel workloads.

Applications can mount buckets directly and access massive datasets at full network speeds, without requiring data import or pre-provisioning.

Unlike FSx, there’s no need to provision file systems ahead of time, guess at future capacity, or manage scratch storage risks just to achieve acceptable performance. And unlike Mountpoint, Object Mount supports a full POSIX interface—including file modification, renaming, directory operations, and file locking—allowing even complex HPC and media production workflows to run without changes.

Because Object Mount operates directly against object storage, there’s no duplicated storage cost. Teams only pay for the compute they use and their underlying object storage, without the overhead of maintaining separate file systems.

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Performance and cost: Object Mount vs. FSx for Lustre.

The difference between FSx for Lustre and Object Mount is not subtle. It’s dramatic—on both performance and cost.

Metrics based on one copy operation per day for a month.

Benchmark testing measured the time and monthly cost of performing a single copy operation per day over the course of a month. The results show Object Mount dramatically outperforming FSx for Lustre across the board.

In these tests:

• Object Mount completed read and write operations 4–15x faster than FSx for Lustre.
  
  
• Object Mount cut monthly costs by more than half compared to FSx configurations, ranging from $25 to $41 per month, versus $150 to $644 for FSx.
  
  
• Even among different FSx configurations (SSD, HDD, SSD with cache), Object Mount consistently outpaced performance and lowered cost.
  
  

Metrics based on ten copy operations per day for a month.

To test scalability, the same benchmarks were extrapolated for heavier workflows—ten copy operations per day for a month. The results were consistent: Object Mount remained faster and cheaper at scale.

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In these scaled workloads:

• Object Mount’s cost increased slightly (to $27–$191/month), while FSx for Lustre costs remained high ($150–$644/month), since FSx charges are based on provisioned size, not usage.
  
  
• Object Mount maintained a significant performance advantage in read and write operations.
  
  

While FSx for Lustre might appear slightly cheaper for very narrow use cases (such as writing many small files using the lowest-cost HDD tiers), the performance degradation is so severe that the tradeoff isn’t practical for most real-world workflows.

The better choice.

Looking at the data, the conclusion is clear: Object Mount isn’t just faster than FSx for Lustre—it’s dramatically faster.

It isn’t just cheaper—it’s far cheaper, with savings of 50–80% or more depending on the workload.

And Object Mount delivers these benefits without operational complexity, without duplicated storage costs, and without compromising on POSIX compatibility.

For teams working in media production, AI/ML, or HPC, the choice is clear:

• Faster performance.
• Lower cost.
• Full compatibility.

Object Mount is the modern answer to outdated HPC file systems.

How to switch to Object Mount.

Making the move to Object Mount is simple.

Object Mount works with any S3-compatible storage, whether in the cloud, on-premises, or hybrid environments. There's no need to migrate your data—Object Mount connects directly to your existing buckets, allowing you to test workflows without disrupting production systems.

Teams can deploy Object Mount alongside their current storage solutions, gradually validating performance improvements before fully transitioning.

With no data migration risk, no complex provisioning, and no lock-in, switching to Object Mount is a low-friction path to faster, more affordable, more scalable storage.

Ready to see the difference?

Get started with a free trial after a quick discovery call with our team.