Upgrade Amazon EBS volumes from gp2 to gp3

This guide walks you through upgrading Amazon EBS volumes from gp2 to gp3. The upgrade is done in-place with no downtime required.

gp3 volumes are up to 20% cheaper than gp2 and include 3,000 IOPS and 125 MiB/s throughput.

A gp2 volume larger than 170 GiB can deliver up to 250 MiB/s. gp3 includes 125 MiB/s. To keep the same throughput, set the gp3 throughput to 250 MiB/s when you modify the volume.

If the volume belongs to an instance that an Auto Scaling group launched, also set gp3 in the group's Launch Template. If you don't, new instances get gp2 volumes again.

Before you start#

Make sure:

You can log in to the AWS Console and have IAM permissions for EC2.
You have the AWS CLI installed and configured (for CLI method).
The volume is in the available or in-use state.
You haven't modified the volume in the last 6 hours (AWS allows one modification per volume every 6 hours).

Option 1 · AWS Console#

Open the EC2 console.
Go to Elastic Block Store → Volumes.
Select the gp2 volume you want to upgrade.
Click Actions → Modify volume.
Change Volume type from gp2 to gp3.
(Optional) Adjust IOPS and Throughput if needed:
- Default: 3,000 IOPS and 125 MiB/s (included in the base price).
- Increase only if your workload requires more.
Click Modify and confirm.

The modification runs in the background. Monitor the State column until it shows completed.

Option 2 · AWS CLI#

Upgrade a single volume#

aws ec2 modify-volume --volume-type gp3 --volume-id vol-0123456789abcdef0

Upgrade all eligible gp2 volumes#

MilkStraw AI recommends gp3 for gp2 volumes of 1,000 GiB or smaller that aren't on AWS Outposts. Larger gp2 volumes deliver more than 3,000 IOPS, so gp3 at the default settings would lower their performance.

aws ec2 describe-volumes \
  --filters Name=volume-type,Values=gp2 \
  --query 'Volumes[?Size<=`1000` && !OutpostArn].VolumeId' \
  --output text | xargs -n 1 aws ec2 modify-volume --volume-type gp3 --volume-id

Check modification status#

aws ec2 describe-volumes-modifications --volume-id vol-0123456789abcdef0

After the upgrade#

If a MilkStraw AI task sent you here, set it to Solved on the Overview page when the modification completes. MilkStraw AI then checks the volume again.

Extra resources#

EBS volume types — Amazon EBS volume types
Modify an EBS volume — Request modifications to your EBS volumes
gp3 pricing — Amazon EBS pricing