Cost OCI block volumes by capacity plus VPUs per GB, and see the IOPS and throughput each performance level buys.
OCI splits a block volume into a capacity charge and a performance charge, and the performance charge is simply the VPUs per GB multiplied by a flat per-VPU price, so moving from Balanced to Higher Performance doubles only the performance half of the bill. Performance scales with size as well as with VPUs: at Balanced you get 60 IOPS per GB up to the service ceiling, which is why a small volume cannot reach high IOPS no matter which level you select. Choosing a performance level is a pricing decision and a capacity decision at once — a 100 GB Balanced volume simply cannot deliver the IOPS a database needs, and the cheapest fix is often more GB rather than more VPUs. Confirm the capacity and per-VPU prices in the Oracle Cloud cost estimator for your region.
OCI Block Volume
monthly = GB × volumes × (capacity price + VPUs × per-VPU price); IOPS = IOPS-per-GB for the level × GB, capped at 300,000, and throughput = KB/s-per-GB × GB.
monthly = GB × volumes × (capacity price + VPUs × per-VPU price); IOPS = IOPS-per-GB for the level × GB, capped at 300,000, and throughput = KB/s-per-GB × GB. OCI splits a block volume into a capacity charge and a performance charge, and the performance charge is simply the VPUs per GB multiplied by a flat per-VPU price, so moving from Balanced to Higher Performance doubles only the performance half of the bill. Performance scales with size as well as with VPUs: at Balanced you get 60 IOPS per GB up to the service ceiling, which is why a small volume cannot reach high IOPS no matter which level you select.
Choosing a performance level is a pricing decision and a capacity decision at once — a 100 GB Balanced volume simply cannot deliver the IOPS a database needs, and the cheapest fix is often more GB rather than more VPUs. Confirm the capacity and per-VPU prices in the Oracle Cloud cost estimator for your region.
This calculator takes 5 inputs: Size per volume, Number of volumes, Performance level, Capacity price per GB-month, Price per VPU per GB-month. The pre-filled defaults are a realistic starting point — replace them with figures from your own environment for a result you can act on.