Amazon EBS – Consider Upgrading io1 Volumes to io2

Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) io2 volumes represent a significant improvement over io1 volumes, offering enhanced durability and performance at the same price point. This policy guide helps organizations optimize their EBS volume configurations for better reliability and cost-effectiveness.

Detailed Explanation

Why This Policy Matters

The transition from io1 to io2 volumes provides critical benefits:

• Dramatically Improved Durability:
  • io1 volumes: 99.8% durability
  • io2 volumes: 99.999% durability (100X improvement)
• Enhanced Performance Ratio:
  • io1: Lower IOPS-to-storage ratio
  • io2: 500 IOPS per provisioned GB (10X improvement)

Cost and Performance Optimization

Potential Savings Breakdown:

1. Direct Cost Savings
   • No price increase for io2 volumes
   • Same cost with significantly better performance
   • Potential infrastructure cost reduction of 20-30%
2. Performance Efficiency
   • Reduced need for multiple volumes
   • Lower overall storage and compute costs
   • Improved application responsiveness

Example Savings Scenario:

• 1TB io1 volume with 5,000 IOPS
• Equivalent io2 volume provides:
  • 5,000 IOPS
  • 100X durability improvement
  • Zero cost increase

Implementation Guide

Infrastructure-as-Code Upgrade Example (Terraform)

# Before (io1 volume)
resource "aws_ebs_volume" "example" {
  type = "io1"
  size = 1000
  iops = 5000
}

# After (io2 volume)
resource "aws_ebs_volume" "example" {
  type = "io2"
  size = 1000
  iops = 5000
}

Manual Migration Steps

1. Create a snapshot of the existing io1 volume
2. Create a new io2 volume from the snapshot
3. Detach the old io1 volume
4. Attach the new io2 volume
5. Verify data integrity and performance

Best Practices

• Incremental Migration: Upgrade volumes in stages
• Performance Testing: Validate application performance post-migration
• Cost Monitoring: Use tools like Infracost to track and optimize ongoing costs

Recommended Tools

• Infracost: Automatically detect and recommend upgrades
• AWS CLI: Facilitate volume migrations
• AWS Cost Explorer: Track potential cost savings

Example Scenarios

High-Performance Database

• Scenario: MySQL database with critical I/O requirements
• Impact:
  • 100X improved durability
  • Same cost structure
  • Enhanced read/write performance

Media Processing Workload

• Scenario: Video rendering infrastructure
• Impact:
  • Reduced volume count
  • Lower overall storage costs
  • Improved data protection

Considerations and Caveats

Potential Limitations

• Not all workloads benefit equally
• Specific application performance requirements vary
• Minimal gain for low-I/O workloads

Migration Risks

• Temporary application downtime during migration
• Potential configuration complexities
• Requires thorough testing

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)