Amazon just announced two related features for getting super-fast, consistent performance with EBS volumes: (1) Provisioned IOPS EBS volumes, and (2) EBS-Optimized Instances.
Starting new instances and EBS volumes with these features is fine, but what if you already have some running instances you’d like to upgrade for faster and more consistent disk performance?
Given the two AWS features, there are two separate powers that need to be engaged to take full advantage:
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Convert the EBS volume(s) from standard EBS volumes into new Provisioned IOPS EBS volume(s).
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Convert the standard EC2 instance into an EBS-Optimized instance.
This article demonstrates how to take an existing EBS boot instance that is already running and convert it to use both of these two EBS performance features. Note that there will be some increased costs; please study Amazon’s published pricing before attempting.