File Storage for VPC profiles

When you provision File Storage for VPC file shares by using the IBM Cloud console, CLI, or API, you specify capacity and performance within a file share profile. Available performance levels vary based on the file share size. All file shares are backed by solid-state drives (SSDs).

File Storage profile overview

When you create a file share, you select the share size and IOPS performance that is available, based on a file storage profile. Currently, all file shares are created based on the high-performance dp2 profile.

Customers with special access to preview the new regional file share offering can use the rfs profile to create file shares with regional availability and adjustable throughput values.

File shares that were created during the beta and limited availability phases with either one of the tiered profiles or the custom profile can continue to operate based on these profiles. You can also update these file shares to use the dp2 profile or switch to another previous generation profile. However, you cannot use the previous profiles when you create a file share, and only the file shares with the dp2 profile can use new features like encryption-in-transit, cross-zone mounting, cross-account sharing, and snapshots.

The following tables show the characteristics and performance levels of the available profiles.

Current file share profiles:

Comparison of file share profiles and performance levels.
Family	Profile	Availability	Share size	IOPS per share	Max throughput^[1]
`defined_performance`	`dp2`	Zonal	10-32,000 GB	100-96,000	8192 Mbps
`defined_performance`	`rfs`	Regional	1-32,000 GB	35,000	8192 Mbps

First- and second-generation profiles in the defined performance profile family are not interchangeable. You can't convert a zonal file share to a regional share, or a regional share to a zonal share.

Deprecated file share profiles:

Comparison of file share profiles and performance levels.
Family	Profile	Availability	Share size	IOPS per share	Max throughput
`tiered`	`tier-3iops`	Zonal	10-32,000 GB	3,000-96,000	5360 Mbps
`tiered`	`tier-5iops`	Zonal	10-9,600 GB	3,000-48,000	6144 Mbps
`tiered`	`tier-10iops`	Zonal	10-4,800 GB	3,000-48,000	8192 Mbps
`custom`	`custom`	Zonal	10-16,000 GB	3,000-48,000	8192 Mbps

The maximum allowable throughput for zonal shares is determined by the number of IOPS multiplied by the throughput multiplier, which is specific to the profile.

Beta The throughput value of regional file shares is adjustable. For the rfs profile, the baseline throughput is 8 Mbps for every 20 GB of capacity. This value can be increased up to 8192 Mbps in the console, from the CLI, and with the API.

The application I/O size directly impacts storage performance. If the application I/O size is smaller than the throughput multiplier that is used by the profile to calculate the bandwidth, the IOPS limit is reached before the throughput limit. Conversely, if the application I/O size is larger, the throughput limit is reached before the IOPS limit.

A single session can achieve up to 64 KB block size transfer. To use the max allowable bandwidth, you need multiple concurrent sessions to the share.

Defined performance profiles

Both profiles in the defined performance family provide resilient file storage with flexible performance characteristics and different data availability.

Zonal availability profile

With the dp2 profile, you can provision zonal file shares, and specify your capacity and total IOPS values.

Zonal data availability means that data is available within a single availability zone, offering faster responses with less delays, but less resilience. For latency-sensitive applications that can tolerate a 1-hour RPO for replication, zonal shares can be a better choice.

File shares can be created with capacity in the range of 10 GB (preset minimum) to 32,000 GB. You can start small, and if you need more storage capacity later, you can increase the size of the file share. When you create a file share, you can select an IOPS value between 100 IOPS (the preset minimum) to 96,000 IOPS, based on share size. You can also adjust the IOPS later.

For the dp2 profile, the baseline throughput is determined by the number of IOPS multiplied by 256 KB. So when you increase the capacity and the IOPS, you also increase the throughput limit. The maximum throughput value for this profile is 8192 Mbps.

Table 2 shows the available IOPS ranges, based on share size.

dp2 file share profile IOPS and capacity ranges.
Share size (GB)	IOPS range (IOPS)
10 - 39	100 - 1,000
40 - 79	100 - 2,000
80 - 99	100 - 4,000
100 - 499	100 - 6,000
500 - 999	100 - 10,000
1,000 - 1,999	100 - 20,000
2,000 - 3,999	200 - 40,000
4,000 - 7,999	300 - 40,000
8,000 - 15,999	500 - 64,000
16,000 - 32,000	2,000 - 96,000¹

¹ For the 96,000 IOPS to be realized, a single file share must be accessed by multiple virtual server instances. A single file share that is accessed by one client is limited to 48,000 IOPS.

Regional availability profile

Beta

The rfs profile is the second-generation profile in the defined performance profile family. With this profile, you can create file shares with regional availability.

Regional data availability means that data is replicated across all 3 zones within the region, offering higher availability and fault tolerance. Due to the synchronous replication between the zones and the need to ensure data durability, you might experience increased latency during write operations. For workloads where latency performance is less critical than durability, or higher and more consistent IOPS is preferred over low latency, the regional shares can be a better choice.

When you create a regional file share, you can specify its capacity between 1 GiB to 32,000 GiB. For every 20 GiB of capacity, 1 MBps of throughput is included. For example, the preset throughput value of a 500 GB file share is 25 MBps (200 Mbps) and the preset value of a 16,000 GB file share is 800 MBps (6400 Mbps). You can increase the throughput from the preset value up to 1024 MBps (8192 Mbps) for extra cost. After the file share is created, you can adjust the throughput between the preset and the maximum values anytime.

In the beta release, cross-account access, cross-region asynchronous replication, and scheduled backups are not supported.

Tiered and custom file storage profiles

In the following section, you can find information about the file share profiles (general purpose, 5-iops, 10-iops, or custom) that were used in the beta release of zonal file shares. New file shares can be provisioned with only the defined performance profiles. To access the newest features, you must change the IOPS profile of your share to dp2.

IOPS tiers

Existing file shares can be based on IOPS tiers that you selected when you created the file share. Table 3 describes the IOPS performance for the IOPS tier profile.

IOPS tier profiles and performance levels for each tier
IOPS Tier	Workload	Share size (GB)	Max IOPS (IOPS)
3 IOPS/GB	General-purpose workloads	10-32,000	48,000-96,000¹
5 IOPS/GB	High I/O intensity workloads	10-9,600	48,000
10 IOPS/GB	Demanding storage workloads	10-4,800	48,000

¹ For the 96,000 IOPS to be realized, a single file share must be accessed by multiple virtual server instances. A single file share that is accessed by only one client is limited to 48,000 IOPS.

The total maximum IOPS is rounded up to the next multiple of 10 when the IOPS calculation results in IOPS less than or equal to 48,000 IOPS. The total maximum IOPS is rounded up to the next multiple of 100 for IOPS calculations that result in IOPS greater than 48,000 IOPS up to 96,000 IOPS.

Custom share profile

The Custom IOPS profile specifies the total IOPS for the file share within the range for its size. File shares that use a custom IOPS profile can have an IOPS performance level in the range of 100-48000 IOPS.

Table 4 shows the available IOPS ranges based on file share size.

Available IOPS based on file share size.
File Share size (GB)	IOPS range (IOPS)
10 - 39	100 - 1,000
40 - 79	100 - 2,000
80 - 99	100 - 4,000
100 - 499	100 - 6,000
500 - 999	100 - 10,000
1,000 - 1,999	100 - 20,000
2,000 - 3,999	200 - 40,000
4,000 - 7,999	300 - 40,000
8,000 - 9,999	500 - 48,000
10,000 - 16,000	1,000 - 48,000

The total maximum IOPS is rounded up to the next multiple of 10 when the IOPS calculation results in IOPS less than or equal to 48,000 IOPS.

View profiles in the console

When you create a file share in the console, you can see the available profiles in the table in the Profiles section.

Viewing profiles from the CLI

To view the list of available profiles from the CLI, run the ibmcloud is share-profiles command.

$ ibmcloud is share-profiles
Listing file share profiles in region us-south under account Test Account as user test.user@ibm.com...
Name   Family   
dp2    defined_performance

Beta Customers with special access to preview the new regional file share offering, can also list the rfs profile with the same command.

$ ibmcloud is share-profiles
Listing file share profiles in region us-south under account Test Account as user test.user@ibm.com...
Name   Family   
dp2    defined_performance   
rfs    defined_performance

For more information about the command options, see ibmcloud is share-profiles.

To see the details of the share profile, use the ibmcloud is share-profile command and specify the name of the profile. See the following example.

$ ibmcloud is share-profile dp2
Getting file share profile dp2 under account Test Account as user test.user@ibm.com...

Name       dp2   
Family     defined_performance   
IOPS       Default   Max     Min   Step   Type      
           100       96000   100   1      range      
              
Capacity   Default   Max     Min   Step   Type      
           10        32000   10    1      range

$ ibmcloud is share-profile rfs
Getting file share profile rfs in region us-south under account Test Account as user test.user@ibm.com...
Name                               rfs   
Family                             defined_performance   
IOPS                               Default   Max   Min   Step   Type      
                                   -         -     -     -      fixed      
                                      
Capacity                           Default   Max     Min   Step   Type      
                                   1         32000   1     1      range      
                                      
Bandwidth(Mbps)                    Default   Max    Min   Step   Type      
                                   1         1024   1     1      range      
                                      
Availability Modes                 Default   Type    Value      Values      
                                   -         fixed   regional   -      
                                      
Allowed Access Protocols           Default   Type     Values      
                                   nfs4      subset   nfs4      
                                      
Allowed transit encryption modes   Default   Type     Values      
                                   stunnel   subset   none,stunnel

For more information about the command options, see ibmcloud is share-profile.

Viewing profiles with the API

Use the GET /share/profiles request to retrieve information about the generally available file share profiles.

curl -X GET $vpc_api_endpoint/v1/share/profiles?$api_version&generation=2\
-H "Authorization: $iam_token"

The response returns the following profiles and related information:

{
  "first": {"href": "https://us-south.iaas.cloud.ibm.com/v1/share/profiles?limit=50"},
  "limit": 50,
  "profiles": [
    {
      "capacity": {
        "max": 32000,
        "min": 10,
        "step": 1,
        "type": "dependent_range"
      },
      "family": "defined_performance",
      "href": "https://us-south.iaas.cloud.ibm.com/v1/share/profiles/dp2",
      "iops": {
        "default": 100,
        "max": 96000,
        "min": 100,
        "step": 1,
        "type": "range"
      },
      "name": "dp2",
      "resource_type": "share_profile"
    }
  ],
  "total_count": 4
}

Beta Customers with special access to review the new regional file share offering, can list the new profile with the following API request.

curl -X GET $vpc_api_endpoint/v1/share/profiles?$api_version&generation=2&maturity=beta"\
-H "Authorization: $iam_token"

The response looks like the following example.

{
  "first": {
    "href": "https://us-south.iaas.cloud.ibm.com/v1/share/profiles?limit=50"
  },
  "limit": 50,
  "profiles": [
    {    
    "allowed_access_protocols": {
      "default": [
        "nfs4"
      ],
      "type": "subset",
      "values": [
        "nfs4"
      ]
    },
    "allowed_transit_encryption_modes": {
      "default": [
        "none",
        "stunnel"
      ],
      "type": "subset",
      "values": [
        "none",
        "stunnel"
      ]
    },
    "availability_modes": {
      "type": "fixed",
      "value": "zonal"
    },
    "bandwidth": {
      "type": "fixed",
      "value": 100
    },
    "capacity": {
      "max": 32000,
      "min": 10,
      "step": 1,
      "type": "dependent_range"
    },
    "family": "defined_performance",
    "href": "https://us-south.iaas.cloud.ibm.com/v1/share/profiles/dp2",
    "iops": {
      "max": 96000,
      "min": 100,
      "step": 1,
      "type": "dependent_range"
    },
    "name": "dp2",
    "resource_type": "share_profile"
},
    {
      "allowed_access_protocols": {
        "default": [
          "nfs4"
        ],
        "type": "subset",
        "values": [
          "nfs4"
        ]
      },
      "allowed_transit_encryption_modes": {
        "default": [
          "none"
        ],
        "type": "subset",
        "values": [
          "none"
        ]
      },
      "availability_modes": {
        "type": "fixed",
        "value": "regional"
      },
      "bandwidth": {
        "max": 8192,
        "min": 1,
        "step": 1,
        "type": "dependent_range"
      },
      "capacity": {
        "max": 32000,
        "min": 10,
        "step": 1,
        "type": "dependent_range"
      },
      "family": "defined_performance",
      "href": "https://us-south.iaas.cloud.ibm.com/v1/share/profiles/rfs",
      "iops": {
        "type": "dependent"
      },
      "name": "rfs",
      "resource_type": "share_profile"
    }
  ],
  "total_count": 2
}

The beta API response is enhanced to include the following fields:

allowed_access_protocols denotes which access protocol is allowed for use with the file share. The current default value is nsf4.
availability_modes denotes the data availability.
- The dp2 profile supports zonal data availability.
- The rfs profile supports regional data availability.
bandwidth denotes the available maximum throughput value that the file share can handle.
- For the dp2 profile, the bandwidth is calculated by multiplying the number of IOPS by 256 KB.
- For the rfs profile, the preset value is calculated as 1 MBps for every 20 GB of capacity. However, you can increase this value up to 1024 MBps.
storage_generation denotes the generation of the file share profile within the Defined performance profile family.
- For the dp2 profile, the value is 1.
- For the rfs profile, the value is 2.

Viewing profiles with Terraform

To use Terraform, download the Terraform CLI and configure the IBM Cloud® Provider plug-in. For more information, see Getting started with Terraform.
VPC infrastructure services use a specific regional endpoint, which targets to us-south by default. If your VPC is created in another region, make sure to target the appropriate region in the provider block in the provider.tf file. See the following example of targeting a region other than the default us-south.
```
provider "ibm" {
   region = "eu-de"
}
```
Import the list of available volume profiles as a read-only data source.
```
data "ibm_is_share_profiles" "example" {
}
```
For more information, see ibm_is_share_profiles.

How I/O size affects file share performance

IOPS values are based on a 16 KB block size for all profiles, with a 50-50 read/write random workload. Each 16 KB of data that is read or written counts as one read/write operation. A single write of less than 16 KB counts as a single write operation.

Maximum throughput for a file share is calculated by taking the file share's IOPS and multiplying it by the throughput multiplier. The throughput multiplier is 16 KB for 3 IOPS/GB or 5 IOPS/GB tiers, or 256 KB for 10 IOPS/GB, custom IOPS, and dp2 profiles. The higher the IOPS that you specify, the higher the throughput. Maximum throughput is 1024 MBps.

Beta For the rfs profile, the throughput is directly adjustable. The preset value is calculated as 1 MBps for every 20 GB of capacity. You can increase this value up to 1024 MBps, or reduce it back to the preset value. The IOPS value for a regional file share is 35000.

Table 5 provides some examples of how block size and IOPS affect the throughput, calculated average I/O block size x IOPS = Throughput in MBps.

How block size and IOPS affect throughput.
Block Size (KB)	IOPS	Throughput (MBps)
4	1,000	4¹
8	1,000	8¹
16	1,000	16
32	500	16
64	250	16
128	128	16
512	32	16
1,024	16	16

¹ If your cap is 1000 IOPS or 16 KB block size, the throughput caps at whatever limit is reached first.

Maximum IOPS can still be obtained when you use smaller block sizes, but throughput is less. The following example shows how throughput decreases for smaller block sizes, when max IOPS is maintained.

16 KB * 6000 IOPS == ~94 MBps
8 KB * 6000 IOPS == ~47 MBps
4 KB * 6000 IOPS == ~23 MBps

Next steps

Create a file shares.
Manage file shares.
For more information about the pricing, see the FAQs.

For the dp2 profile, the maximum allowable bandwidth is determined by the number of IOPS multiplied by 256 KB. For the rfs profile, the baseline throughput is 1 MBps for every 20 GB of capacity. You can increase the throughput value by increasing the capacity and IOPS of the dp2 shares, and by increasing the throughput value of the rfs profile-based shares. Maximum throughput is 8192 Mbps for all defined performance profiles. ↩︎