How to Mount Amazon S3 Bucket as a Windows Drive [Steps]

Overview of mounting Amazon S3 bucket as a Windows Drive

Amazon S3 is a scalable object storage service designed for cloud environments. Mounting an Amazon S3 bucket as a Windows drive is a way to seamlessly integrate cloud storage into your desktop environment. It allows you to interact with S3 as if it were a local or network drive, providing ease of use for file management, backup, and other storage tasks.

Advantages of Mounting Amazon S3 as a File System:
♨ Seamless Integration: Use your S3 storage as if it were a local drive, making file transfer and organization simple.
♨ Cross-Platform Compatibility: Access the same S3 storage from different platforms (e.g., Windows, macOS, Linux).
♨ Scalable Storage: Benefit from S3's scalability, allowing you to add storage without worrying about hardware constraints.
♨ Automated Backups: Easily automate backups and data synchronization between your local environment and S3.
♨ Collaboration: Share files with other team members or users through S3's ACL and bucket policies.

Prerequisites

Before mounting an S3 bucket as a Windows drive, ensure you have the following:

• Ensure you’re running a compatible version of Windows that supports WSL 2. Install the AWS CLI (Command Line Interface) to interact with AWS services from the command line. Follow the AWS CLI installation guide.
• A valid AWS account with S3 service access. Create a bucket if you haven't already.
• Ensure you have an AWS Access Key ID and Secret Access Key, and configure them with the AWS CLI (aws configure).

How to mount Amazon S3 bucket as a drive[Windows & Linux]

Mounting Amazon S3 as a drive allows you to interact with S3 as if it were a local file system, giving you a convenient way to manage files stored in the cloud.

You can use S3FS or Rclone, which are designed for mounting Amazon S3 cloud storage as a drive on Windows.

1. Rclone

Rclone is a powerful command-line tool that allows you to interact with various cloud storage services, including S3. It has a wide range of features, including mounting S3 as a drive. Here's how to use Rclone to mount and synchronize cloud storage.

1. Visit the Rclone website and follow the instructions to install it on your system.

2. Configure Rclone with S3:

• Use the command rclone config to configure Rclone.
• Select "New remote" and follow the prompts to set up an S3 connection.
• You will need your AWS Access Key, Secret Access Key, and S3 region. If you're using a custom S3-compatible service, you may need additional information.

3. After configuring the remote, you can mount it using the rclone mount command. For example:

• Replace my-s3-remote with your remote's name and /mnt/s3 with your desired mount point.
• Ensure you're running this command with appropriate permissions (e.g., sudo on Linux).

You may want to run this command in a background process or as a service, depending on your operating system, to keep the mount active.

2. S3FS

S3FS is a FUSE-based file system that allows you to mount an S3 bucket as a local file system in Linux and macOS.

1. On Linux, you can install it using package managers like apt, yum, or others, depending on your distribution.

2. Create a file to store your AWS credentials (usually in ~/.passwd-s3fs).

The file should contain your AWS Access Key and Secret Access Key, separated by a colon, like this:

Secure the file by setting its permissions (e.g., chmod 600 ~/.passwd-s3fs).

3. Use the s3fs command to mount the S3 bucket to a specified directory:

• Replace my-bucket with your S3 bucket name and /mnt/s3 with your desired mount point.

Automatically Mounting S3 as a network drive on Windows

It's handy to have the S3 bucket automatically mount as a network drive when Windows starts. Let's learn how to set up automatic mounting of the S3 bucket on Windows.

1. Create therclone-S3.cmd file in the C:\rclone\directory.

2. Add the string to the rclone-S3.cmd file:

C:\rclone\rclone.exe mount blog-bucket01:blog-bucket01/ S: –vfs-cache-mode full

3. Save the CMD file. You can run this CMD file instead of typing the command to mount the S3 bucket manually.

4. Copy therclone-S3.cmd file to the startup folder for all users:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp

5. As an alternative, you can create a shortcut to C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe and set the arguments needed to mount an S3 bucket in the target properties:

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k cd c:\rclone & rclone mount blog-bucket01:blog-bucket01/ S: –vfs-cache-mode full

6. Then add the edited shortcut to the Windows startup folder:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp

One minor drawback is that a command line window with the message "The service rclone has been started" appears after mounting an S3 bucket to your Windows machine as a network drive. To automate the mounting process without this window, you can use the Windows Task Scheduler or NSSM, a free tool for creating and configuring Windows services, to set up automatic startup.

Conclusion

Mounting Amazon S3 as a Windows drive provides a convenient way to integrate cloud storage into your daily workflow. With this setup, you can manage files in S3 just like any other drive on your system. Ensure you take the necessary security precautions to protect your AWS credentials and S3 data when mounting S3 buckets as local drives.