Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes - Amazon EBS
Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes

Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes are backed by solid-state drives (SSDs). They are the highest performance Amazon EBS storage volumes designed for critical, IOPS-intensive, and throughput-intensive workloads that require low latency. Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes deliver their provisioned IOPS performance 99.9 percent of the time.

Amazon EBS offers two types of Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes:

Provisioned IOPS SSD (io2) Block Express volumes

io2 Block Express volumes are built on the next generation of Amazon EBS storage server architecture. It has been built for the purpose of meeting the performance requirements of the most demanding I/O intensive applications that run on instances built on the Nitro System. With the highest durability and lowest latency, Block Express is ideal for running performance-intensive, mission-critical workloads, such as Oracle, SAP HANA, Microsoft SQL Server, and SAS Analytics.

Block Express architecture increases performance and scale of io2 volumes. Block Express servers communicate with instances built on the Nitro System using the Scalable Reliable Datagram (SRD) networking protocol. This interface is implemented in the Nitro Card dedicated for Amazon EBS I/O function on the host hardware of the instance. It minimizes I/O delay and latency variation (network jitter), which provides faster and more consistent performance for your applications.

io2 Block Express volumes are designed to provide 99.999 percent volume durability with an annual failure rate (AFR) no higher than 0.001 percent, which translates to a single volume failure per 100,000 running volumes over a one-year period. io2 Block Express volumes are suited for workloads that benefit from a single volume that provides sub-millisecond latency, supports higher IOPS and throughput, and larger capacity than gp3 volumes.

Provisioned IOPS SSD (io2) Block Express volumes deliver their provisioned IOPS performance 99.9 percent of the time.

io2 Block Express volumes are supported on all instances built on the Nitro System. For more information, see io2 Block Express volumes.

Considerations

  • io2 Block Express volumes are available in the following Regions: US East (Ohio) | US East (N. Virginia) | US West (N. California) | US West (Oregon) | Asia Pacific (Hong Kong) | Asia Pacific (Mumbai) | Asia Pacific (Seoul) | Asia Pacific (Singapore) | Asia Pacific (Sydney) | Asia Pacific (Tokyo) | Canada (Central) | Europe (Frankfurt) | Europe (Ireland) | Europe (London) | Europe (Stockholm) | Middle East (Bahrain).

  • All io2 volumes created after November 21, 2023 are io2 Block Express volumes. io2 volumes created before November 21, 2023 can be converted to io2 Block Express volumes by modifying the IOPS or size of the volume.

  • Instances built on the Nitro System can be attached to volumes up to 64 TiB in size. Other instance types can be attached to volumes up to 16 TiB in size.

  • Instances built on the Nitro System can be attached to volumes provisioned with up to 256,000 IOPS. Other instance types can be attached to volumes provisioned with up to 64,000 IOPS, but can achieve up to 32,000 IOPS.

  • To create an encrypted io2 volume, with a size larger than 16 TiB or IOPS greater than 64,000, from an unencrypted snapshot or shared encrypted snapshot, you must:

    1. Create an encrypted copy of that snapshot in your account

    2. Use that snapshot copy to create the volume

Performance

With io2 Block Express volumes, you can provision volumes with:

  • Sub-millisecond average latency

  • Storage capacity up to 64 TiB (65,536 GiB)

  • Provisioned IOPS up to 256,000, with an IOPS:GiB ratio of 1,000:1. Maximum IOPS can be provisioned with volumes 256 GiB and larger (1,000 IOPS × 256 GiB = 256,000 IOPS).

    Note

    You can achieve up to 256,000 IOPS with instances built on the Nitro System. On other instances, you can achieve performance up to 32,000 IOPS.

  • Volume throughput up to 4,000 MiB/s. Throughput scales proportionally up to 0.256 MiB/s per provisioned IOPS. Maximum throughput can be achieved at 16,000 IOPS or higher.


              Throughput limits for io2 Block Express volumes

Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1) volumes

Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1) volumes are designed to meet the needs of I/O-intensive workloads, particularly database workloads, that are sensitive to storage performance and consistency. Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes use a consistent IOPS rate, which you specify when you create the volume, and Amazon EBS delivers the provisioned performance 99.9 percent of the time.

io1 volumes are designed to provide 99.8 percent to 99.9 percent volume durability with an annual failure rate (AFR) no higher than 0.2 percent, which translates to a maximum of two volume failures per 1,000 running volumes over a one-year period.

io1 volumes are available for all Amazon EC2 instance types.

Performance

io1 volumes can range in size from 4 GiB to 16 TiB and you can provision from 100 IOPS up to 64,000 IOPS per volume. The maximum ratio of provisioned IOPS to requested volume size (in GiB) is 50:1. For example, a 100 GiB io1 volume can be provisioned with up to 5,000 IOPS.

The maximum IOPS can be provisioned for volumes that are 1,280 GiB or larger (50 × 1,280 GiB = 64,000 IOPS).

  • io1 volumes provisioned with up to 32,000 IOPS support a maximum I/O size of 256 KiB and yield as much as 500 MiB/s of throughput. With the I/O size at the maximum, peak throughput is reached at 2,000 IOPS.

  • io1 volumes provisioned with more than 32,000 IOPS (up to the maximum of 64,000 IOPS) yield a linear increase in throughput at a rate of 16 KiB per provisioned IOPS. For example, a volume provisioned with 48,000 IOPS can support up to 750 MiB/s of throughput (16 KiB per provisioned IOPS × 48,000 provisioned IOPS = 750 MiB/s).

  • To achieve the maximum throughput of 1,000 MiB/s, a volume must be provisioned with 64,000 IOPS (16 KiB per provisioned IOPS × 64,000 provisioned IOPS = 1,000 MiB/s).

  • You can achieve up to 64,000 IOPS only on instances built on the Nitro System. On other instances, you can achieve performance up to 32,000 IOPS.

. The following graph illustrates these performance characteristics:


            Throughput limits for io1 volumes

Your per-I/O latency experience depends on the provisioned IOPS and on your workload profile. For the best I/O latency experience, ensure that you provision IOPS to meet the I/O profile of your workload.