Amazon EC2 Storage Explained

Introduction

Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) provides scalable compute capacity in the cloud, and its storage options are designed to complement this scalability. Understanding the different EC2 storage types, such as SSD and HDD volumes, is essential for optimizing performance and cost efficiency. In this blog, we will explore the features, benefits, and use cases of EC2 storage solutions.

Types of Amazon EC2 Storage

Amazon EC2 storage is divided into two primary categories:

SSD Volumes: Designed for transactional workloads and applications requiring high Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS).
HDD Volumes: Optimized for throughput-intensive workloads and large sequential data access patterns.

SSD Volumes

SSD (Solid-State Drive) volumes provide high performance and low latency for transactional workloads. These are ideal for applications such as relational databases, NoSQL databases, and boot volumes.

There are two types of SSD volumes available in Amazon EC2:

General Purpose SSD (gp3 and gp2): Provides a balance between cost and performance, suitable for a wide range of transactional workloads.
Provisioned IOPS SSD (io2 Block Express, io2, io1): Offers consistent and high performance for latency-sensitive applications.

The following table summarizes the key characteristics of SSD volumes:

**SSD Volumes**
Volume Type	Description	Performance		Amazon EBS Multi-Attach
Volume Type	Description	Max IOPS per Volume	Max Throughput per Volume	Amazon EBS Multi-Attach
General Purpose SSD (gp3)	Provides a balance of price and performance for transactional workloads.	16,000	1,000 MiB/s	Not Supported
General Purpose SSD (gp2)	Provides a balance of price and performance for transactional workloads.	16,000	250 MiB/s	Not Supported
Provisioned IOPS SSD (io2 Block Express)	High-performance SSD for latency-sensitive transactional workloads.	256,000	4,000 MiB/s	Supported
Provisioned IOPS SSD (io2/io1)	High-performance SSD for latency-sensitive transactional workloads.	64,000	1,000 MiB/s	Supported

HDD Volumes

HDD (Hard Disk Drive) volumes are optimized for large, sequential workloads, providing cost-effective storage solutions for throughput-intensive applications such as big data analytics and log processing.

There are two types of HDD volumes available in Amazon EC2:

Throughput Optimized HDD (st1): Ideal for frequently accessed, throughput-intensive workloads.
Cold HDD (sc1): Designed for infrequently accessed workloads with the lowest cost per GB.

The following table summarizes the key characteristics of HDD volumes:

**HDD Volumes**
Volume Type	Description	Performance		Amazon EBS Multi-Attach
Volume Type	Description	Max IOPS per Volume	Max Throughput per Volume	Amazon EBS Multi-Attach
Throughput Optimized HDD (st1)	A low-cost HDD designed for frequently accessed, throughput-intensive workloads.	500	500 MiB/s	Not Supported
Cold HDD (sc1)	The lowest-cost HDD designed for less frequently accessed workloads.	250	250 MiB/s	Not Supported

Conclusion

Amazon EC2 storage options provide businesses with the flexibility to optimize their cloud infrastructure based on workload requirements. Whether you need the high performance of SSDs for transactional workloads or the cost efficiency of HDDs for sequential workloads, EC2 offers a variety of storage solutions to meet diverse needs. By understanding the differences between SSD and HDD volumes, businesses can choose the right storage option to balance performance and cost effectively.

Amazon EC2 Storage Explained: SSD vs. HDD