kubernetes storageat ebs speed,s3 costs
The performance and latency* of EBS with the storage economics of S3, exposed as an ordinary block device
Cost calculator
The same volumes and workload priced against AWS EBS gp3
3 nodes × 9 volumes each · 10 × 484 GB cache disks per node
27,000 IOPS per node · stripe carries 30,000
Advanced
Capacity
1.5 TB rewritten / month per volume
500 GB per volume · 13,500 GB total
Throughputper volume
5 TB written / month
328.5 TB read / month
7.5 cores per node
31.3 GiB per node
30,000 IOPS and 1,250 MB/s a node · 484 GB a disk, all of it on the free baseline
3 nodes at $1,275/mo — already the cheapest layout
Instance typesall 34
59%$10,750/mo saved
cheaper than EBS gp3, for 135 TB provisioned
Show calculation
backedblock.io
Compute 3 × m8gb.2xlarge — 8 vCPU, 32 GiB, $425/mo each9 volumes a node. Min node spec
Per node, for the volumes it holds — plus a cache stripe of 10 × 484 GB gp3 at 3,000 IOPS and 125 MB/s each (baseline) — 30,000 IOPS and 1,250 MB/s across the stripe, free of charge whether the volumes ask for it or not, and | 3 × m8gb.2xlarge · 8 vCPU, 32 GiB | $1,275 |
|---|---|---|
| Object storage | 108,000 GB written | $2,484 |
| EBS cache | 13,500 GB | $1,080 |
| Cache performance | 30 disks within the free 3,000 IOPS and 125 MB/s | $0.00 |
| PUT requests | 175.5M/mo | $877 |
| GET requests | 887.0M/mo | $355 |
| Snapshots | 1 full + 3 incremental · 148,500 GB in GLACIER_IR | $1,404 |
| Total | $7,475 |
EBS gp3
| Provisioned capacity | 135,000 GB, used or not | $10,800 |
|---|---|---|
| Throughput | within the free 125 MB/s per volume | $0.00 |
| IOPS | within the free 3,000 per volume | $0.00 |
| Snapshots | 1 full + 3 incremental · 148,500 GB unique | $7,425 |
| Total | $18,225 |
Key features
Object storage economics, with EBS performance and latency*
Capacity comes from S3 at S3 costs; the working set is served from a write-back cache on local EBS disks, and smart tiering keeps the hit rate high
Storage that speaks Kubernetes
A CSI driver attaches volumes to pods over NVMe-oF/TCP, so provisioning, expansion, snapshots and restores are ordinary PVC operations
Snapshots to whichever S3 class is cheap enough
Full and incremental, each an independently restorable point in time, sent to STANDARD, STANDARD_IA or GLACIER_IR per snapshot class
Granular control and QoS, per volume
Read, write, and combined MB/s caps plus an IOPS ceiling — enforce performance limits exactly where you need them
Encryption and compression
Encryption and compression keep data protected before it reaches S3, while reducing storage and network usage