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Cloud Computing · Intermediate

EBS Volume Types

EBS options: SSD-backed gp3/gp2 and io2/io1, and HDD-backed st1 and sc1, each with different performance and price.

Definition

General Purpose SSD (gp3) provides a baseline of 3,000 IOPS and 125 MiB/s independent of size, with performance configurable separately; gp2 performance scales with size. Provisioned IOPS SSD (io2 Block Express, io1) serves latency-sensitive databases. Throughput Optimized HDD (st1) suits big sequential workloads, and Cold HDD (sc1) is the lowest cost; HDD types cannot be boot volumes.

Example

A log-processing cluster uses st1 volumes for sequential reads, while its OLTP database uses io2.

Exam tip

gp3 is usually cheaper than gp2 with independently tunable IOPS; io2 is the answer for highest sustained IOPS and durability.

Related terms