Adjusting IOPS

With this feature, you can adjust the IOPS of your existing Block Storage for Classic immediately. You don't need to create a duplicate or manually copy data to new storage. The adjustment does not cause any kind of outage or lack of access to the storage.

Billing for the storage is updated to add the prorated difference of the new price to the current billing cycle. The full new amount is billed in the next billing cycle.

Advantages of Adjustable IOPS

Cost management – Some clients might need high IOPS only during peak usage times. For example, a large retail store has peak usage during the holidays and might need a higher IOPS rate on the storage then. However, the retail stores don't need higher IOPS in the middle of the summer. With this feature, you can manage your costs and pay for higher IOPS when you need it.

Limitations

You can't switch between Endurance and Performance when you adjust their IOPS. However, you can specify a new IOPS for the storage based on the following criteria:

Table 1. Available IOPS based on volume size.
Volume size (GB)	IOPS range
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 - 2,999	200 - 40,000
3,000 - 3,999	200 - 48,000
4,000 - 7,999	300 - 48,000
8,000 - 9,999	500 - 48,000
10,000 - 12,000	1,000 - 48,000

Maximum IOPS for block storage volumes varies based on volume size. The maximum IOPS for a volume is 48,000 IOPS.

Effect of IOPS adjustment on replication

If the volume has replication in place, the replica is automatically updated to match the IOPS selection of the primary.

Adjusting the IOPS on your Storage in the UI

Go to your list of Block Storage for Classic. Click the menu icon, then click Infrastructure > Storage > Block Storage for Classic.
Select the iSCSI volume from the list and click the ellipsis > Modify Volume.
Under Adjust Storage IOPS, make a new selection:
- For Endurance (Tiered IOPS), select a different tier. You can increase the IOPS tier at any time. However, decreasing is available only once a month.
- For Performance (Allocated IOPS), specify a new IOPS option for your storage by entering a value in the range 100-48,000 IOPS. The UI notifies you if the selection is not valid for your volume size.
Review your selection and the new pricing.
Click Modify.
Your new storage allocation is available in a few minutes.

Adjusting the IOPS on your Storage from the CLI

Before you can begin the process, decide on the CLI client that you want to use.

You can either install the IBM Cloud CLI and install the SL plug-in with ibmcloud plugin install sl. For more information, see Extending IBM Cloud CLI with plug-ins.
Or, you can install the SLCLI.

Adjusting the IOPS from the IBMCLOUD CLI

You can update the IOPS by using the ibmcloud sl block volume-modify command. The following example modifies a Performance volume by specifying a new IOPS value.

ibmcloud sl block volume-modify 12345678 --new-iops 4000

The following example modifies an Endurance file share by specifying a new IOPS tier.

ibmcloud sl block volume-modify 12345678 --new-tier 4

For more information about all of the parameters that are available for this command, see ibmcloud sl block volume-modify.

Adjusting the IOPS from the SLCLI

You can update the IOPS by using the following command.

$ slcli block volume-modify --help
Usage: slcli block volume-modify [OPTIONS] VOLUME_ID

Options:
  -c, --new-size INTEGER        New Size of block volume in GB. ***If no size
                                is given, the original size of volume is
                                used.***
                                Potential Sizes: [20, 40, 80, 100,
                                250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000, 12000]
                                Minimum: [the original size of the volume]
  -i, --new-iops INTEGER        Performance Storage IOPS, between 100 and 6000
                                in multiples of 100 [only for performance
                                volumes] ***If no IOPS value is specified, the
                                original IOPS value of the volume will be
                                used.***
  -t, --new-tier [0.25|2|4|10]  Endurance Storage Tier (IOPS per GB) [only for
                                endurance volumes] ***If no tier is specified,
                                the original tier of the volume will be
                                used.***
  -h, --help                    Show this message and exit.

Adjusting the IOPS on your Storage with the API

You can adjust the IOPS by using an API call to the SOAP web service. The following sample API calls can be called from the scripting language of your choice.

For more information about the SLAPI, see the SLDN.

Adjust IOPS on Performance storage volume.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:ns1="http://api.service.softlayer.com/soap/v3.1/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:SOAP-ENC="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
 <SOAP-ENV:Header>
   <ns1:authenticate>
   </ns1:authenticate>
 </SOAP-ENV:Header>
 <SOAP-ENV:Body>
   <ns1:placeOrder>
     <orderData xsi:type="ns1:SoftLayer_Container_Product_Order_Network_Storage_AsAService_Upgrade">
       <volume xsi:type="ns1:SoftLayer_Network_Storage">
           <id xsi:type="xsd:int">XXXXXXXXX</id><!-- where XXXXXXXXX is the Volume Id -->
       </volume>
       <iops xsi:type="xsd:int">2007</iops> <!-- This is the upgraded amount -->
       <packageId xsi:type="xsd:int">759</packageId>
       <prices SOAP-ENC:arrayType="ns1:SoftLayer_Product_Item_Price[3]" xsi:type="SOAP-ENC:Array">
           <item xsi:type="ns1:SoftLayer_Product_Item_Price">
               <id xsi:type="xsd:int">189433</id> <!-- Max level price -->
           </item>
           <item xsi:type="ns1:SoftLayer_Product_Item_Price">
               <id xsi:type="xsd:int">190233</id> <!-- 2000 - 2999 GBs storage price-->
           </item>
           <item xsi:type="ns1:SoftLayer_Product_Item_Price">
               <id xsi:type="xsd:int">190293</id> <!-- 200 - 40000 IOPS price-->
           </item>
       </prices>
     </orderData>
   </ns1:placeOrder>
 </SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

Adjust IOPS on Endurance storage volume.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:ns1="http://api.service.softlayer.com/soap/v3.1/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:SOAP-ENC="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
 <SOAP-ENV:Header>
   <ns1:authenticate>
   </ns1:authenticate>
 </SOAP-ENV:Header>
 <SOAP-ENV:Body>
   <ns1:placeOrder>
     <orderData xsi:type="ns1:SoftLayer_Container_Product_Order_Network_Storage_AsAService_Upgrade">
       <volume xsi:type="ns1:SoftLayer_Network_Storage">
           <id xsi:type="xsd:int">XXXXXXXX</id> <!--Where XXXXXXXX is the VolumeID -->
       </volume>
       <packageId xsi:type="xsd:int">759</packageId>
       <volumeSize xsi:type="xsd:int">24</volumeSize>
       <prices SOAP-ENC:arrayType="ns1:SoftLayer_Product_Item_Price[3]" xsi:type="SOAP-ENC:Array">
         <item xsi:type="ns1:SoftLayer_Product_Item_Price">
             <id xsi:type="xsd:int">189433</id> <!-- Max level price -->
         </item>
         <item xsi:type="ns1:SoftLayer_Product_Item_Price">
             <id xsi:type="xsd:int">193373</id> <!-- New Performance tier price -->
         </item>
         <item xsi:type="ns1:SoftLayer_Product_Item_Price">
             <id xsi:type="xsd:int">193433</id> <!-- Storage space price for the new tier -->
         </item>
       </prices>
     </orderData>
   </ns1:placeOrder>
 </SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

Adjusting the IOPS on your Storage with Terraform

You can adjust the IOPS by using the ibm_storage_block resource, and specifying a different number in the iops argument. The following example increases the performance tier of an Endurance volume to the 4 IOPS/GB tier.

resource "ibm_storage_block" "test1" {
        type = "Endurance"
        datacenter = "dal09"
        capacity = 40
        iops = 4
        os_format_type = "Linux"

        # Optional fields
        allowed_virtual_guest_ids = [ 27699397 ]
        allowed_ip_addresses = ["10.40.98.193", "10.40.98.200"]
        snapshot_capacity = 10
        hourly_billing = true
}

The following example changes the performance level of a Performance volume to 150 IOPS.

resource "ibm_storage_block" "test2" {
        type = "Performance"
        datacenter = "dal09"
        capacity = 40
        iops = 150
        os_format_type = "Linux"

        # Optional fields
        allowed_virtual_guest_ids = [ 27699397 ]
        allowed_ip_addresses = ["10.40.98.193", "10.40.98.200"]
        hourly_billing = true
}

For more information about the arguments and attributes, see ibm_storage_block.