The Lambda function now offers the ability to configure its ephemeral storage, which is a directory that provides fast I/O throughput and can be reused across multiple invocations for the same instance of a Lambda function. This feature allows developers to increase the size of this directory from 512MB to up to 10GB, providing more space for tasks such as unzipping files or cloning Git repositories. The change is available through various configuration methods, including CloudFormation, AWS CLI, and AWS SDK, but does not affect the deployment package limit of Lambda functions. The new feature also differs from using EFS (Elastic File System), which provides a network file system with higher latency and data sharing capabilities, making it suitable for different use cases and characteristics.