Understanding EBS Volume Types: A Simplified Explanation

Introduction

In the world of cloud computing, storage plays a crucial role in managing and accessing data efficiently. Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers Elastic Block Store (EBS) as a flexible and scalable storage solution for its users. EBS volumes are virtual disk drives that can be attached to Amazon EC2 instances, providing durable block-level storage. However, not all EBS volumes are created equal.

General Purpose SSD (gp3):

General Purpose SSD (gp3) volumes are the newest and most affordable type of SSD storage provided by Amazon EBS. They are designed to offer a good balance between cost and performance for a wide range of applications. One of the advantages of gp3 volumes is that you can scale their performance separately from their size. This means that you can adjust the performance without having to increase the storage capacity. Furthermore, gp3 volumes are priced 20 percent lower per unit of storage compared to the General Purpose SSD (gp2) volumes.

What is IOPS?

IOPS, which stands for Input/Output Operations Per Second, is a measure of the performance or speed of an EBS (Elastic Block Store) volume in Amazon Web Services (AWS). In simple terms, it represents how quickly data can be read from or written to the volume.

Think of IOPS as the number of tasks the EBS volume can handle simultaneously. The higher the IOPS, the more tasks it can…