AWS Elastic Block Storage (EBS) GP3 Vs GP2

AWS announced a new type of volume called gp3 in re:Invent 2020 by Andy Jassy, which is latest offering of general purpose Elastic Block Storage (EBS).  The new EBS volume gp3 is 20% cheaper than gp2. As you might be aware, 1GB of gp2 volume provides 3 IOPS and someone can add more storage to achieve a higher number of IOPS. Applications which require more IOPS, you would need to grow the volumes size which will increase TCO for gp2. 

The new EBS Volume gp3 provides 3000 IOPS by default without any extra cost with 125 MB/s throughput and allows increasing Max Throughput/Volume to 1,000 MB/s. 

gp3 can also be considered to replace io1 and io2 EBS volumes to save costs for organizations. Another thing to note about io1 and io2 that these provide higher durability compared to gp3 and gp2. One has to do their own performance testing for their workload as each workload may be very different. 

GP3 and GP2 Comparison:

Finally, gp3 offers SSD-performance at a 20% lower cost per GB than gp2. Organizations should consider moving to gp3 for better performance and lower cost.

Caution:

• Your AWS account may have a soft limit on size of gp3 available. You would need to work with your account manager or AWS support to address any soft limits.   

More Info:

Introducing new Amazon EBS general purpose volumes, gp3