We’re excited to announce the launch of Gen 2 sdp (SSD defined performance) profile for Block Storage for VPC – the next leap forward in performance, scale and flexibility for your Virtual Server Instances (VSIs). With this new profile, customers gain higher capacity and performance, tunable throughput, and unmatched configurability, all backed by enterprise-grade flash storage. Whether you’re running databases, enterprise applications, AI (Training or Inferencing) or cloud-native workloads, our new profile ensures you get the optimal performance at the right cost.

Gen 2 sdp Profile Overview

The Gen 2 sdp profile allows customers to right-size their storage to match specific performance targets—such as IOPS and throughput—while providing improved scalability and greater control over how their storage resources are allocated.

• Capacity Range: 1 GB – 32 TB (2x Gen1 profiles)

• IOPS Range: 100 – 64K (1.3x Gen1 profiles)

• Throughput: configurable up to 1 GB/s

• Base performance: 3,000 IOPS and 125 MB/s throughput included with every volume

• Flexibility: independently tune capacity, IOPS, and throughput

• Performance: enterprise-grade flash-based storage

This combination of flexibility, built-in performance, and enterprise-grade reliability ensures that the Gen 2 profile can support everything from small-scale development environments to mission-critical production workloads.

Key Value Proposition of Gen 2 sdp profile

The strength of the sdp profile lies in how they expand customer choice and efficiency:

• More Headroom → Capacity doubles to 32 TB and the IOPS ceiling increases to 64K

• Tunable Throughput → Unlike Gen 1, Gen 2 lets customers dial throughput up to 1 GB/s

• Built-in Value → Every Gen 2 volume comes with 3,000 IOPS + 125 MB/s included

• Cost Savings → Achieve up to 74% savings compared to Gen 1 profiles, depending on workload and configuration

• Greater Flexibility → Configure any combination of capacity, IOPS, and throughput independently

• Boot Volume Advantage → Break free from the 250 GB boot volume limit with larger boot volumes that deliver higher performance

• Same Trusted Foundation → Both remain flash-based, ensuring enterprise-grade consistency and reliability

Gen 1 vs. Gen 2: A Leap Forward

Gen 1 profiles provided a strong foundation, but they also came with limitations: capacity capped at 16 TB, IOPS at 48K, and throughput implicitly tied to volume size. Gen 2 removes these constraints, doubling capacity, raising IOPS ceilings, and introducing fully configurable throughput. This means customers can now scale performance independently of size, ensuring they get exactly what they need without over-provisioning.

A defining differentiator is the cost efficiency Gen 2 delivers. Every volume includes 3,000 IOPS and 125 MB/s throughput by default, which simplifies provisioning and reduces costs across the board. Customers migrating from Gen 1 to Gen 2 see clear savings:

• General-purpose profiles → up to 5% savings

• 5 IOPS/GB tier → 27–45% savings

• 10 IOPS/GB tier → as much as 64–74% savings

By combining higher performance ceilings with lower total cost of ownership, Gen 2 provides a smarter, more economical path to scaling workloads on IBM Cloud.

Compatibility and Extended Capabilities

The Gen 2 profile also ensure continuity with Gen 1. They remain fully integrated with the IBM Cloud VPC ecosystem, delivering a seamless experience across compute, networking, and storage. All existing features—snapshots, backups, and data protection—are supported, so customers can confidently adopt Gen 2 knowing they retain everything they rely on today, plus new flexibility and performance.

In addition, Gen 2 unlocks new enhancements. Boot volumes are no longer restricted to 250 GB, allowing customers to provision larger boot volumes with higher throughput and IOPS. Snapshot provisioning is also more powerful: while Gen 1 limited snapshots to attached block volumes, Gen 2 enables snapshots for both attached and detached volumes, making data protection and recovery workflows faster and more flexible.

Pricing for Gen 2 profile

Gen 2 pricing has been designed for transparency and cost efficiency:

• Capacity: $0.08/GB/month

• IOPS: first 3,000 free; $0.005/IOP/month thereafter

• Throughput: first 125 MB/s free; $0.04/MBps/month thereafter

With this model, customers benefit from a generous baseline performance included at no extra cost, while retaining the option to scale up to 64K IOPS and 1 GB/s throughput as workloads demand.

Ordering Experience

Getting started with Gen 2 sdp profile is simple and seamless. Customers can provision this new profile directly through the IBM Cloud Catalog, using the same ordering flow they are already familiar with. The overall Block Storage for VPC experience remains unchanged—from ordering to lifecycle management—so there’s no learning curve or adjustment required.

The only difference customers will notice is a more powerful set of options when selecting their storage profiles as shown below: 

With Gen 2, you can independently choose the capacity, IOPS, and throughput values that best match their workload requirements. This makes it easier than ever to tailor storage performance to application needs, without compromise or over-provisioning. The result is a more predictable, flexible, and cost-efficient storage experience that adapts to business growth.

Closing

With the new Gen 2 sdp profile, Block Storage for VPC becomes more scalable, more flexible, and more performance-driven than ever before. Customers now have the tools to fine-tune storage to their application’s exact needs—without tradeoffs. This launch marks a new chapter in the evolution of IBM Cloud storage, delivering on our promise of enterprise-grade innovation built for the future.

If you are not already an IBM Cloud customer, it’s easy to sign up and get started. If you are already a customer, you can now provision block volumes using the IBM Cloud Console, API or CLI. Get up to USD 1,000 in credits for new file shares and VPC infrastructure by using the code VPC1000 at the time of provisioning or through the billing and usage section in IBM Cloud Console.

Contact Us Today!

For more information or to start your journey with IBM Cloud VPC Block Storage, contact our team today!

Authors: 

Prathamesh Kadam | IaaS Product Management at IBM Cloud
Manuel Jimenez | IaaS Product Management at IBM Cloud