AWS (Amazon Web Services) Elastic Block Storage (EBS) is a scalable, high performance EC2 storage.  You can use EBS to store persistent data, meaning the service will keep your data even when you terminate EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) Instances.

With EBS, you can create storage volumes and attach them to EC2 instances. Ideally, EBS is suitable for anyone doing extensive data analysis and anyone who runs enterprise applications. Read on to find out more about EBS storage costs.

Why Choose Elastic Block Storage?

Here are some of the top reasons why should choose EBS storage:

  • If you are looking for a beginner-friendly, easy-to-use service, use Elastic Block Storage.
  • If you are looking for a beginner-friendly, easy-to-use service, use Elastic Block Storage.
  • EBS has high performance and is compatible with Elastic Compute Cloud.
  • EBS is a flexible storage option where you can customize volumes according to the performance you need.
  • You can mount EBS volumes to instances within one availability region.

This article helps you understand how EBS pricing options work, so you can make an informed decision on needed resources. You will also learn additional tips on lowering your EBS costs.

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The Cost of Elastic Block Storage 

EBS pricing depends on the type of EBS volume you choose. We’ll discuss pricing for both SSD and HDD EBS volumes:

  1. General Purpose SSD Pricing: AWS has two generations of General Purpose SSD (Solid State Drives), the GP2, and the GP3. The first generation (GP2) gives optimal performance for various kinds of workloads. The latest generation (GP3) is one of the lowest-priced EBS volumes. It is ideal for transactional workloads. AWS users usually pay for General Purpose SSD storage according to the allocated GB (gigabyte) size. You make the payments monthly.

If you want to calculate your general-purpose pricing, note the following:

  • The price per GB-month for your AWS region, for example, $0.08 per GB-month
  • The allocated GB volume, let’s say 2000 GB per month
  • The allocated time per day in seconds, where 12 hours = 43,200 seconds

To get the GP3 volume price in US dollars, multiply all those factors, and divide it by the number of seconds in that month.

The total charge includes GP3 volume pricing, plus the price of GP3 IOPS, plus the price of GP3 baseline performance.

  1. Provisioned IOPS SSD Pricing: Evidently, intensive workloads need low latency, high-performance storage. The provisioned IOPS (Input Output per Second) option is the highest performing option. Like General Purpose SSD, the provisioned IOPS has two generations. The first generation has features that guarantee high performance and low latency workloads. The second generation has features that guarantee high performance, low latency, and durability for transactional workloads. 

The pricing depends on:

a. Provisioned amount in GB-month. i.e. 0.125 per GB-month.

  • The allocated amount in that month, such as 2000 GB.
  • The time in seconds per day.

The initial IOPS charge is a product of all these factors, divided by the number of seconds in that month. As you provision more capacity in one volume, the total charges decrease, which makes it possible to scale up while cutting costs.

  1. Throughput Optimized HDD (Hard Disk Drive) Pricing: If you have throughput-intensive workloads, you may consider using this pricing option. Because it’s a hard disk drive, it’s a low-cost option. Use this option if you want to access your workloads frequently.

The HDD pricing model is still the same as the ones above. Instead of charging $0.125 per GB-month, substitute a lower cost, currently $0,045 per GB-month.

  1. Cold HDD Pricing: This option is just like Throughput Optimized option, but ideal for less frequently accessed apps. It’s also a low-cost option. The baseline cost ranges from $0.015 per GB-month.

The Bottom Line

The above is a brief overview of the EBS Block Storage pricing that allows you to gauge your storage and stay ahead of cloud costs.

nOps allows you to gain visibility into your EBS storage. With nOps, you can understand the resources to scale up and down to optimize cloud costs.

Start your nOps free trial today, or schedule a demo to get started!