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Choosing the right Block Storage class

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Block Storage Overview

Block Storage is a high-performance, flexible, and reliable solution for critical workloads. Attach volumes directly to your instances, scale capacity from 10 GB to 12 TB, and choose the right class (Classic or High Speed) to match your performance and availability needs. Ideal for databases, VMs, and containerized applications, with features like snapshots, backups, and encryption.

 

Block Storage Classes

Our Block Storage classes are designed to meet different requirements for your workloads, including performance, availability, and resiliency. Choose the right class to optimize speed, redundancy, and cost for your applications.

 

Classic Volume

The Classic Volume class is ideal for everyday application needs, including databases, virtual machines, and backups. Data is replicated within a single availability zone (1-AZ) or Local Zone, with guaranteed NVMe performance.

This class is suitable for standard workloads where low-latency and reliability are important, but multi-zone replication is not required.

 

High Speed Volume Gen2

The High Speed Volume Gen2 class offers performance that scales with volume size and is ideal for intensive workloads:

  • IOPS: 30 IOPS/GB (base 3,000 IOPS for 10-100 GB, up to 20,000 IOPS)
  • Throughput: 0.5 MB/s/GB (base 50 MB/s for 10-100 GB, up to 512 MB/s)
  • Maximum size: 12 TB

This class is recommended for heavy workloads such as analytics, large databases, or high-performance computing.

 

Comparison Table

Storage ClassUse CasesPerformanceSupported RegionsAvailability SLAReplicationNotes
High Speed Volume Gen 2High-performance workloads, analytics, large databases30 IOPS/GB (base 3,000 IOPS, up to 20,000 IOPS), 0.5 MB/s/GB (base 50 MB/s, up to 512 MB/s), max 12 TB1-AZ, Local Zones99.9%ZonalOptimized NVMe, scalable performance
Classic VolumeEveryday workloads, VMs, backups500 IOPS guaranteed, 64 MB/s1-AZ, Local Zones99.9%ZonalNVMe over Fabric, standard performance

 

Additional details

Minimum storage duration

For Block Storage, there is no minimum storage duration; you can attach or delete volumes at any time without extra charges. You are billed only for the actual usage of the volume during the period it exists.

 

Backup and snapshot fees

While standard volume usage is billed per GB/hour, snapshots stored on Block Storage and backups stored on Object Storage may incur additional storage costs. Snapshots allow you to capture the state of a volume at a given time, and backups enable data protection and recovery.

 

Lifecycle and resizing

Block Storage volumes are fully flexible; you can increase their size at any time, extend partitions, and attach volumes to different instances. These operations are handled at the volume level, allowing you to optimize storage capacity and performance without downtime.

 

Encrypted Volumes

Each Block Storage volume type is also available in an encrypted version (LUKS), depending on the region. These encrypted variants ensure data confidentiality without impacting performance.

Info

Please note that volumes in Local Zones do not support LUKS encryption.

Encrypted volumes can be created directly from the OVHcloud Control Panel or via CLI/API tools by specifying the volume type with the suffix -luks (for example, classic-luks or highspeed-luks). This provides an easy and secure way to protect sensitive data while leveraging the same performance and features as standard volumes.

Info

For large encrypted volumes (over 800 GB), performance may be lower than the expected volume QoS, with up to a 20% reduction in throughput for High Speed Gen2. The impact varies depending on the customer's implementation.

 

Use Cases

Block Storage supports a wide variety of workloads thanks to its performance, flexibility, and resilience. Common use cases include:

  • Databases: MySQL, PostgreSQL, and other relational databases benefit from low-latency and high-throughput access.
  • Virtual machines & containerized applications: Persistent storage for VMs and containers with high reliability and fast access.
  • Analytics & AI workloads: High Speed Volumes provide maximum IOPS and throughput for data-intensive applications.
  • Backup & disaster recovery: Easily create snapshots and backups for critical data, ensuring fast recovery and protection.

 

Zone and regional Considerations

Block Storage volumes can be deployed with different availability options depending on your requirements:

  • Classic & High Speed Volume (1-AZ or Local Zone): Data is replicated within a single zone. These options provide low-latency access and high performance, suitable for workloads that do not require multi-zone redundancy.
  • Local Zones: For applications needing ultra-low latency in a specific geographic location, Local Zones allow you to keep storage close to compute resources.
Tip

Choosing the right deployment option ensures optimal performance, redundancy, and cost efficiency based on your workload and geographic requirements.

 

Go further

Creating and configuring an additional disk on an instance

Change your Block Storage volume type

If you need training or technical assistance to implement our solutions, contact your sales representative or click on this link to get a quote and ask our Professional Services experts for a custom analysis of your project.