EBS Volume Types Compared: gp3 vs io2 vs st1 vs sc1
Which EBS volume type to attach, and what each one costs
Price and performance
On-demand rates in US East (N. Virginia), per GB-month of provisioned size. Lowest storage rate is highlighted.
| Volume type | Storage, per GB‑month | Per IOPS‑month | Performance |
|---|---|---|---|
| General Purpose SSD (gp3) | $0.08 | $0.005 | 3,000 IOPS and 125 MiB/s included, up to 16,000 IOPS and 1,000 MiB/s |
| Provisioned IOPS SSD (io2) | $0.125 | $0.065 | Up to 64,000 IOPS on most instance types, 99.999% durability |
| Throughput Optimized HDD (st1) | $0.045 | Not billed separately | HDD, 40 MiB/s per TiB baseline, up to 500 MiB/s, built for sequential reads |
| Cold HDD (sc1) | $0.015Lowest | Not billed separately | HDD, 12 MiB/s per TiB baseline, up to 250 MiB/s, coldest and cheapest |
| General Purpose SSD (gp2), legacyLegacy | $0.10 | Not billed separately | 3 IOPS per GB (100 to 16,000), burst credits under 1 TiB |
| Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1), legacyLegacy | $0.125 | $0.065 | Up to 64,000 IOPS on Nitro instances, 99.8% to 99.9% durability |
Example: 1,000 GB that needs 6,000 IOPS
Monthly cost for storage plus provisioned performance. Snapshots, throughput above baseline, and data transfer are excluded.
| Volume type | Per month | How it adds up |
|---|---|---|
| gp3 | $95.00Lowest | 1,000 GB at $0.08 plus 3,000 IOPS above the free 3,000 at $0.005 |
| io2 | $515.00 | 1,000 GB at $0.125 plus 6,000 IOPS at $0.065 |
| gp2, legacy | $200.00 | IOPS scale with size, so 6,000 IOPS needs a 2,000 GB volume at $0.10 |
| io1, legacy | $515.00 | 1,000 GB at $0.125 plus 6,000 IOPS at $0.065 |
| st1 and sc1 | Not an option | HDD volumes top out at 500 and 250 IOPS |
Which one to pick
Each recommendation links to the page for that option.
What to watch for
Gaps and gotchas that the price table does not show.
gp3 sells IOPS and throughput separately
A gp3 volume includes 3,000 IOPS and 125 MiB/s at any size. Extra IOPS cost $0.005 per IOPS-month and extra throughput $0.04 per MiB/s-month, so a volume that needs high IOPS but little space still gets expensive.
io2 IOPS get cheaper in tiers
io2 charges $0.065 per IOPS-month up to 32,000 IOPS, $0.0455 from 32,001 to 64,000, and $0.0319 above 64,000. The worked example above stays in the first tier.
HDD volumes have limits beyond price
st1 is 44% cheaper per GB than gp3 and sc1 is cheaper still, but both start at 125 GiB, cannot be boot volumes, and perform poorly on random I/O. Use them for large sequential workloads only.
Changing type does not need downtime
Elastic Volumes can change a volume's type, size and IOPS while it stays attached. After a change, the volume cannot be modified again for six hours.
Snapshots are billed on top
Every volume type shares the same snapshot rate of $0.05 per GB-month of snapshot data. It is incremental, so it tracks changed blocks, not volume size.