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High Performance Block Storage is a performance tier of DigitalOcean Volumes Block Storage for I/O-intensive workloads, such as databases, retrieval pipelines, and write-heavy NoSQL stores. Each High Performance volume uses network-attached NVMe storage over NVMe/TCP and delivers up to 60,000 IOPS and 1,200 MB/s, regardless of the attached Droplet’s type.

Performance

During the private preview, all High Performance volumes have the same performance limits, regardless of their size or the Droplet they’re attached to:

The limits apply to reads and writes combined, and DigitalOcean enforces them for each volume independently. A volume can burst above its sustained limits for up to 40 seconds at a time. After a burst, the volume returns to its sustained limits, and its burst capacity recovers while its I/O stays below the sustained limits.

These are the maximums a volume allows, not guaranteed performance. The performance you observe also depends on your workload and on the Droplet’s CPU and network resources.

If your workload needs more performance than these limits provide, contact your TAM.

Availability and Pricing

High Performance volumes are available in the NYC2, SFO3, ATL1, RIC1, MKC1, and MEM1 datacenters. Like Standard volumes, a High Performance volume can only attach to Droplets in the same datacenter. For the full list of where each volume type is available, see Volume Availability.

High Performance volumes are free during the private preview. Volumes you create during the preview carry over to general availability, and billing starts then. We confirm pricing and the billing start date with you before billing begins, so you can delete any volumes you don’t want to keep.

Differences from Standard Volumes

High Performance volumes work the same way as Standard volumes for most operations. You can create, list, and delete them, attach and detach them, format and mount them automatically, increase their size while they’re attached or detached, and take snapshots of them.

During the private preview, keep the following differences in mind:

• Minimum size: High Performance volumes must be at least 128 GiB.
• No High Performance volumes on the Create Droplets page: You can’t add a High Performance volume while you create a Droplet. Create the Droplet first, then create the volume from the Volumes page or with the API and attach it to the Droplet.
• No conversion from Standard volumes: You can’t change an existing Standard volume to a High Performance volume. To move data, create a High Performance volume and copy the data across, for example with your database’s replication or with rsync.
• Restoring from snapshots: Taking snapshots of High Performance volumes works normally. Creating a new volume from one of those snapshots has known issues during the private preview, and the request can time out without creating the volume. Until the issue is fixed, don’t rely on snapshots as your only copy of data on a High Performance volume. If you need to restore from a snapshot, contact your TAM.
• DigitalOcean Kubernetes (DOKS): The DOKS CSI driver doesn’t support High Performance volumes. You can attach them to standalone Droplets only.

Create a High Performance Volume Using the API

To create a High Performance volume, send a POST request to the /v2/volumes endpoint with the same parameters you use for a Standard volume, and set performance_class to b2. The examples in this section read your personal access token from the DIGITALOCEAN_TOKEN environment variable.

The following example creates a 1,024 GiB volume in MEM1 and formats it with an Ext4 filesystem:

curl -X POST \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $DIGITALOCEAN_TOKEN" \
    -d '{"name": "pg-data", "region": "mem1", "size_gigabytes": 1024, "filesystem_type": "ext4", "performance_class": "b2"}' \
    "https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/volumes"

The filesystem_type parameter is optional. Set it to ext4 or xfs to format the volume when you create it, or leave it out to format the volume yourself. If you leave out performance_class or set it to b1, the API creates a Standard volume. The API returns a 422 error if size_gigabytes is less than 128 for a High Performance volume.

The response includes "performance_class": "b2". Requests to retrieve or list volumes also return the performance_class field for each volume, so you can confirm a volume’s type with a GET request to /v2/volumes/<your_volume_id>.

After you create the volume, attach it to a Droplet in the same datacenter. Send a POST request to the volume’s actions endpoint with type set to attach:

curl -X POST \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $DIGITALOCEAN_TOKEN" \
    -d '{"type": "attach", "droplet_id": <your_droplet_id>, "region": "mem1"}' \
    "https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/volumes/<your_volume_id>/actions"

Replace <your_volume_id> with the ID of the volume from the create response, and <your_droplet_id> with the ID of the Droplet.

The performance_class parameter isn’t in the Block Storage API reference or supported by doctl during the private preview. All other volume endpoints, including attach, detach, resize, and snapshot, work the same way for High Performance volumes as they do for Standard volumes.

Create a High Performance Volume Using the Control Panel

To create a High Performance volume, go to the Volumes page, then click Create a Volume to open the Add a Volume window. On the Create new tab, select High Performance as the volume type.

In the Storage size (GiB) field, enter a size of at least 128 GiB.

Under Choose Configuration, choose whether to format and mount the volume automatically or manually. These are the same configuration options as a Standard volume. If you choose Automatically Format & Mount, select Ext4 or XFS as the filesystem.

Under Select a Droplet for this Volume, choose a Droplet in one of the datacenters that supports High Performance volumes. The volume is created in the same datacenter as the Droplet.

In the Enter a name field, use the generated name or enter a new one. Names can be up to 64 characters, must start with a lowercase letter, can contain only lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens, and must end with a letter or number. Then, click Create Volume.

On the Volumes page, High Performance volumes display a High Performance badge.

Use a High Performance Volume on a Droplet

A High Performance volume appears on the Droplet the same way as a Standard volume, with the same /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-0DO_Volume_<your_volume_name> device path. If you chose automatic formatting and mounting, the volume is mounted at /mnt/<your_volume_name>, with hyphens in the name replaced by underscores, and is ready to use. For details, see Naming Conventions. Otherwise, format and mount the volume as you would a Standard volume.

To increase the size of a High Performance volume and grow its filesystem, follow the steps in How to Increase the Size of Volumes. To take a snapshot, see How to Create Snapshots of Volumes.

Feedback and Support

To give feedback or report a problem during the private preview, contact your TAM. Describe your workload, the performance you observed, and any issues you ran into.