# EBS Volume Types

* **Solid state drives (SSD) (gp2 and io1 and io2):**
  * For **transactional workloads involving frequent read/write operations with small I/O size**.
  * Dominant performance attribute is **IOPS**.<br>
* **Hard disk drives (HDD) (st1 and sc1):**
  * For **large streaming workloads**.
  * Dominant performance attribute is **throughput**.
  * **Can't be used for boot volumes**.

## EBS Volume Types

* **Provides the following volume types**:<br>
  * **General Purpose SSD (gp2)**
    * **Cost-effective storage** that is **ideal for a broad range of workloads**.<br>
    * Deliver **single-digit millisecond latencies**.<br>
    * Ability to **burst to 3,000 IOPS for extended periods of time**.<br>
    * **Max IOPS per volume = 16,000**.<br>
    * Use cases:
      * **Boot volumes**.
      * **Low-latency interactive apps**.
      * **Development and test environments**.<br>

  * **Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1 and io2)**
    * Designed to **meet the needs of I/O-intensive workloads**, particularly **database workloads,** that are **sensitive to storage performance and consistency**.<br>
    * **Uses a consistent IOPS rate**, which you specify when you create the volume.<br>
    * **Multi-Attach enables you to attach a single volume to up to 16 Nitro-based instances that are in the same Availability Zone; this is only for io1**.<br>
    * Use cases:
      * **Workloads that require sustained IOPS performance or more than 16,000 IOPS or 250 MiB/s of throughput per volume**.
      * **I/O-intensive database workloads**.
      * **Small volume sizes with high IO requirements**.

  * **Throughput Optimized HDD (st1)**
    * **Low-cost**.<br>
    * **For frequently accessed, throughput-intensive workloads**.<br>
    * Use cases:
      * **Big data**.
      * **Data warehouses**.
      * **Log processing**.<br>

  * **Cold HDD (sc1)**
    * **Lowest-cost**.<br>
    * **sc1 = Cold Data = Infrequently Accessed**.<br>
    * **For infrequently accessed workloads**.<br>
    * Use cases:
      * **Throughput-oriented storage for data that is infrequently accessed**.
      * **Scenarios where the lowest storage cost is important**.