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Elastic Compute Service:Change the category of a disk

Last Updated:Jan 15, 2024

If the performance requirements of your applications or workloads change or if the storage capacity is insufficient, you may need to change the categories of disks to meet your business requirements to provide improved performance. For example, if you want an existing standard SSD to deliver a higher IOPS, you can change the standard SSD into an enhanced SSD (ESSD).

Prerequisites

Snapshots are created for the disk whose category you want to change. For more information, see Create a snapshot for a disk.

Precautions

  • When you change the category of a disk, the performance of the disk may vary. We recommend that you change the categories of your disks during off-peak hours. For information about the performance of different disk categories, see Block storage performance.

  • A disk category change takes hours or even longer. The amount of time that is required varies based on the throughput, storage capacity, and original category of the disk. After you change the category of a disk, we recommend that you go to the Task Logs page in the Elastic Compute Service (ECS) console or call the DescribeTaskAttribute operation to check the change progress.

  • In rare cases, disk categories may fail to change if resources are insufficient. If a disk category change fails, make the change again.

Limits

Phase

Limits

Before the disk category change

Before you change the category of a disk, make sure that the following requirements are met:

  • Up to 50 disk category change tasks can run in parallel per region in an account.

  • You cannot change the category of a disk attached to an instance that is included in a migration plan.

During the disk category change

The following limits apply when the category of a disk is being changed:

  • You cannot cancel the disk category change task after it is initiated.

  • You cannot create snapshots for the disk.

  • You cannot resize the disk.

  • You cannot partition or format the disk.

  • You cannot re-initialize the disk

  • You cannot roll back the disk by using snapshots.

  • You cannot attach or detach the disk.

  • If the disk is an ESSD, you cannot change its performance level.

  • If the disk is a system disk, you cannot replace the operating system of the instance.

After the disk category change

The following limits apply after the category of a disk is changed:

  • If only the performance level of an ESSD is changed, you can change the disk configurations again at any time.

  • The category of a disk can be changed only once within one day.

  • If a disk is changed into an ESSD AutoPL disk and provisioned IOPS is configured for the ESSD AutoPL disk, you cannot change the disk configurations again within the same day.

  • The provisioned IOPS of an ESSD AutoPL disk can be modified up to two times within the same day.

Billing

After the category of a disk is changed, the billing of the disk has the following changes:

  • If the disk is a pay-as-you-go disk, you are charged for the disk based on the new disk category.

  • If the disk is a subscription disk, the price difference is calculated based on the remaining subscription duration and the new disk category. You must pay the price difference.

For information about disk billing, see Block storage devices.

Procedure

  1. Log on to the ECS console.

  2. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Storage & Snapshots > Disks.

  3. In the upper-left corner of the top navigation bar, select a region. 地域

  4. Find the disk whose category you want to change. In the Actions column, choose 更多 > Change Category.

  5. In the Change Category dialog box, configure the New Disk Category parameter.

    Disks of each category can be changed to different disk categories.

    Ultra disks

    Ultra disks can be changed into the following disks:

    • Standard SSDs

    • ESSD Entry disks

    • ESSDs at the performance levels 0, 1, 2, or 3 (PL0, PL1, PL2, or PL3 ESSDs)

    • ESSD AutoPL disks

    Note

    You cannot change ultra disks into standard SSDs in Hangzhou Zone D.

    Standard SSDs

    Standard SSDs can be changed into the following disks:

    • PL1, PL2, or PL3 ESSDs

    • ESSD AutoPL disks

    ESSD Entry disks

    ESSD Entry disks can be changed into ESSDs or ESSD AutoPL disks.

    ESSDs

    • PL0 ESSDs can be changed into the following disks:

      • PL1, PL2, or PL3 ESSDs

      • ESSD AutoPL disks

    • You can change the categories of PL1, PL2, and PL3 ESSDs based on their billing methods.

      • If ESSDs use the pay-as-you-go billing method, you can make the following changes:

        • Change the ESSDs between PL1, PL2, and PL3.

        • Change the ESSDs into ESSD AutoPL disks.

      • If ESSDs use the subscription billing method, you can upgrade the ESSDs only from a low performance level to a high performance level.

        • You can upgrade PL1 ESSDs to PL2 ESSDs.

        • You can upgrade PL1 ESSDs to PL3 ESSDs.

        • You can upgrade PL2 ESSDs to PL3 ESSDs.

        • You can change PL1 ESSDs into ESSD AutoPL disks.

    Note
    • Before you change a disk on an ECS instance to an ESSD, check whether the instance type supports ESSDs. For more information, see Overview of instance families. If the instance type does not support ESSDs, upgrade the instance to an instance type that supports ESSDs and then change the category of the disk. For more information, see Instance families that support instance type changes.

    • The performance levels to which ESSDs can be upgraded are determined based on the capacity of the ESSDs. If you cannot select a higher performance level for an ESSD, extend the ESSD and then upgrade its performance level. For more information, see Overview.

    • After you change a disk into a PL3 ESSD, attach the disk to an instance or restart the instance to which the disk is attached so that the PL3 ESSD can deliver optimal performance. Otherwise, the PL3 ESSD cannot deliver optimal performance but data reliability is not affected.

    ESSD AutoPL disks

    ESSD AutoPL disks cannot be changed to other disk categories.

    Note

    When you change the configurations of an ESSD AutoPL disk or change a disk into an ESSD AutoPL disk, take note of the following items:

    • You can enable or disable performance provision for the ESSD AutoPL disk based on your needs. For more information, see the Modify the provisioned performance of an ESSD AutoPL disk section of the "Modify the performance configurations of an ESSD AutoPL disk" topic. After you configure provisioned performance for an ESSD AutoPL disk, you are charged additional fees. For more information about ESSD AutoPL disks, see ESSD AutoPL disks.

    • You can only configure provisioned performance for the ESSD AutoPL disk but cannot configure burst performance for the disk. After a disk is changed into an ESSD AutoPL disk, you can enable or disable performance burst for the ESSD AutoPL disk. For more information, see the Enable or disable performance burst for an ESSD AutoPL disk section in the "Modify the performance configurations of an ESSD AutoPL disk" topic.

  6. Confirm the price and click Confirm.

What to do next

Use one of the following methods to view the change progress and the status of the disk:

  • Method 1: Go back to the Disks page and view the category of the disk in the Disk Category column.

  • Method 2: In the left-side navigation pane, choose Maintenance & Monitoring > 更多 > Tasks. Find the change task and view the change progress in the Status column.

  • Method 3: Call the DescribeTaskAttribute operation to query the progress of the change task.