File Storage for VPC profile

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.

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 profile:

Comparison of file share profiles and performance levels.
Family	Profile	IOPS	IOPS per share	Max throughput	Share size
`defined_performance`	`dp2`	1-100 IOPS/GB	100-96,000	1024 MBps (8192 Mbps)	10-32,000 GB

Previous file share profiles:

Comparison of file share profiles and performance levels.
Family	Profile	IOPS^[1]	IOPS per share	Max throughput^[2]	Share size
`tiered`	`tier-3iops`	3 IOPS/GB	3,000-96,000	670 MBps (5360 Mbps)	10-32,000 GB
`tiered`	`tier-5iops`	5 IOPS/GB	3,000-48,000	768 MBps (6144 Mbps)	10-9,600 GB
`tiered`	`tier-10iops`	10 IOPS/GB	3,000-48,000	1024 MBps (8192 Mbps)	10-4,800 GB
`custom`	`custom`	1-100 IOPS/GB	3,000-48,000	1024 MBps (8192 Mbps)	10-16,000 GB

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.

Defined performance profile

With the dp2 profile, you can specify the total IOPS for the file share within the range for a specific file share size, 10 GB (default minimum) to 32,000 GB. You can provision shares with IOPS performance from 100 IOPS (the default minimum) to 96,000 IOPS, based on share size. The dp2 profile is based on an I/O size of 256 KB. Maximum throughput is 1024 MBps (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.

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. New file shares can be provisioned with only the defined performance profile. 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 UI

When you create a file share in the UI, you can see the dp2 profile 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

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

Viewing profiles with the API

Use the GET /share/profiles request to retrieve information for all 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
}

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 tiers.

The higher the IOPS that you specify, the higher the throughput. Maximum throughput is 1024 MBps.

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.

IOPS values are based on 16k I/O size. ↩︎
Baseline throughput is determined by the number of IOPS multiplied 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 or custom IOPS tiers. The higher the IOPS that you specify, the higher the throughput. Maximum throughput is 1024 MBps. ↩︎