How to Choose Type of AWS EBS Volume out of GP2 and PIOPS | GP2 Vs PIOPS

Save Cost using GP2 Volumes Instead of Provisioned IO Volume

Aim:

• Understanding GP2 volume 
• Understanding IO1 Volume 
• Which one is cost and performance effective 
• How much IOPS do you need? 
• Which one to choose, GP2 or IO1

About GP2 Volumes:

• Cost effective (Explained below) 
• Range in size from 1 GiB to 16 TiB 
• Max throughput – 160 MB/s 
• Baseline performance of 3 IOPS/GiB 
• Baseline throughput can be increased by increasing volume size 
• Maximum throughput of 160 MiB/s 
• Ability to burst to 3,000 IOPS 
• Refills at the rate of 3 IOPS and can go max upto 54,00,000 I/O credits 
• More IO credits, the more time it can burst beyond its baseline capacity 
• Larger GP2 volume refills the credits more quickly 
• Initial credits – 54,00,000 I/O credits 
• Volume accumulated 180K IOPS can burst upto 1 min (180000/3000 = 60s = 1 min)

About IO1 Volumes:

• For IO intensive workloads like databases 
• Range from 4 GB to 16 TB 
• Max throughput – 320 MB/s 
• IOPS can be specified directly irrespective of the volume size 
• No credit balance

Out of GP2 and IO1, which one is cost and performance effective?

• Performance:
  GP2
  100 GB volume (300 IOPS) [Baseline throughput – 128 MB/s]
  can burst upto 3000 IOPSIO1
  100 GB volume (300 IOPS) [Baseline throughput – 75 MB/s ]
  No burst available
  
• Cost:
  GP2 – 100 GB volume (300 IOPS) – $7/month
  IO1 – 100 GB volume (300 IOPS) – $32/month

How much IOPS do you need?     

• Check cloudwatch metrics 
• Observe the sum of volumereadops and volumewriteops for a given period(peak) of time. 
• Calculate it for one second, this would be the IOPS you need