Amazon Web Services introduces gp3 EBS volumes for cost savings

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched gp3, a new general-purpose SSD volume type. The new volume type is designed to improve cost efficiency and provide more flexible performance settings compared to its predecessor, gp2 volumes.

Traditional gp2 volumes have previously offered SSD performance for various applications, such as virtual desktops and databases. However, the performance of these volumes was tied to their size, which could lead to over-provisioning of storage capacity to achieve desired performance. This was particularly the case for applications like MySQL, Cassandra, and Hadoop clusters, which require high performance but not necessarily large storage capacity.

The new gp3 volumes deliver a predictable baseline performance of 3,000 IOPS and 125 MiB/s, independent of volume size. The key innovation is the ability to independently provision IOPS and throughput, without increasing storage size. This allows for configuring smaller volumes while maintaining high performance, at a cost that can be up to 20% lower per gigabyte compared to gp2 volumes. For customers requiring even higher performance, IOPS can be scaled up to 16,000 and throughput up to 1,000 MiB/s for an additional fee.

AWS has also provided a tool to help customers calculate potential savings when migrating from gp2 to gp3. Businesses can upgrade their existing gp2 volumes to gp3 without needing to restart instances or detach volumes, minimizing downtime.