Cloud block storage provides storage in fixed-size blocks, usually presented to a virtual machine as a disk volume. It is commonly used for operating systems, databases, and applications that need low-latency disk access.
Why block storage is useful
Block storage can be attached, resized, snapshotted, and tuned for performance depending on the cloud platform. It works well when a workload expects a traditional disk.
Block, object, and file storage
Object storage is better for large unstructured data, while file storage is useful when many systems need shared folder-style access.
Block storage is the cloud version of the disk volume behind many servers.