A physical data transfer device AWS ships to a customer to move large volumes of data (up to petabytes) to or from S3 when network transfer would be too slow or expensive. Snowball Edge adds local compute capability. Since November 7, 2025 it no longer accepts new customers; Snowcone and Snowmobile are already retired.
In SAP-C02, Snowball is chosen when available bandwidth would make a network transfer take weeks or months. Rule of thumb (Snowball vs. DataSync): if transferring over the internet would take more than about a week, consider Snowball. For new customers, AWS recommends DataSync or AWS Data Transfer Terminal.
AWS Snowball is a concept that can show up on the exam. Check the full guide to see it in context.