# Increasing DB instance storage capacity
<a name="USER_PIOPS.ModifyingExisting"></a>

To increase storage capacity for your DB instance, use either of the following techniques:

**Scale up the storage volume**  
Every DB instance has a primary storage volume with a maximum capacity of 64 TiB. You can increase the allocated space on a storage volume by a minimum of 10%. You can't deallocate space.

**Add up to three storage volumes (io2 or gp3)**  
You can increase the total storage capacity of an RDS for Oracle or RDS for SQL Server instance by adding up to three volumes to each DB instance. Each additional volume allocates up to 64 TiB of storage, up to a maximum of 256 TiB per instance.  
For RDS for Oracle DB instances, you can add a storage volume with the minimum storage size of 200 GiB.

You can use the Amazon RDS Management Console, the Amazon RDS API, or the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) for the preceding techniques. For information about storage limits, see [Amazon RDS DB instance storage](CHAP_Storage.md).

# Scaling up DB instance storage
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You can scale up the storage of an existing DB instance by increasing the allocated storage for the primary volume. When you increase the allocated storage, you must increase it by at least 10 percent. If you try to increase the value by less than 10 percent, you get an error. You can't reduce the amount of storage on a volume after you have allocated storage for it.

**Note**  
For RDS for SQL Server DB instances, you can scale storage for only the General Purpose SSD and Provisioned IOPS SSD storage types.

To monitor the amount of free storage for your DB instance so you can respond when necessary, we recommend that you create an Amazon CloudWatch alarm. For more information on setting CloudWatch alarms, see [Using CloudWatch alarms](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/DeveloperGuide/AlarmThatSendsEmail.html).

Scaling storage usually doesn't cause any outage or performance degradation of the DB instance. After you modify the storage size for a DB instance, the status of the DB instance is **storage-optimization**. 

Storage optimization can take several hours. You can't make further storage modifications for either six (6) hours or until storage optimization has completed on the instance, whichever is longer. You can view the storage optimization progress in the AWS Management Console or by using the [describe-db-instances](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/rds/describe-db-instances.html) AWS CLI command.

## Console
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**To increase storage for a DB instance**

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Amazon RDS console at [https://console.aws.amazon.com/rds/](https://console.aws.amazon.com/rds/).

1. In the navigation pane, choose **Databases**.

1. Choose the DB instance that you want to modify.

1. Choose **Modify**.

1. Enter a new value for **Allocated storage**. It must be at least 10% greater than the current value.   
![\[Modify the amount of storage for a DB instance\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/images/scale-gs2.png)

1. Choose **Continue**.

1. Choose **Apply immediately** in the **Scheduling of modifications** section to apply the storage changes to the DB instance immediately.

   Or choose **Apply during the next scheduled maintenance window** to apply the changes during the next maintenance window.

1. When the settings are as you want them, choose **Modify DB instance**.

## AWS CLI
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To increase the storage for a DB instance, use the AWS CLI command [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/rds/modify-db-instance.html](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/rds/modify-db-instance.html). Set the following parameters:
+ `--allocated-storage` – Amount of storage to be allocated for the DB instance, in gibibytes.
+ `--apply-immediately` – Use `--apply-immediately` to apply the storage changes immediately.

  Or use `--no-apply-immediately` (the default) to apply the changes during the next maintenance window. An immediate outage occurs when the changes are applied.

The following example scales up the storage for `mydbinstance` to 1,000 GiB and applies the change immediately. The command also migrates the storage volume to gp3 and sets the provisioned IOPS to 6000.

```
aws rds modify-db-instance \
    --db-instance-identifier mydbinstance \
    --allocated-storage 1000 \
    --storage-type gp3 \
    --iops 6000 \
    --apply-immediately
```

For more information about storage, see [Amazon RDS DB instance storage](CHAP_Storage.md).

## RDS API
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To increase storage for a DB instance, use the Amazon RDS API operation [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/APIReference/API_ModifyDBInstance.html](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/APIReference/API_ModifyDBInstance.html). Set the following parameters:
+ `AllocatedStorage` – Amount of storage to be allocated for the DB instance, in gibibytes.
+ `ApplyImmediately` – Set this option to `True` to apply the storage changes immediately. Set this option to `False` (the default) to apply the changes during the next maintenance window. An immediate outage occurs when the changes are applied.

For more information about storage, see [Amazon RDS DB instance storage](CHAP_Storage.md).

# Adding storage volumes
<a name="USER_PIOPS.ModifyingExisting.AdditionalVolumes"></a>

For RDS for Oracle and RDS for SQL Server DB instances, you can add up to three storage volumes to increase your total storage capacity up to 256 TiB per instance. Additional storage volumes allow you to use different storage types (gp3 and io2) to optimize costs and performance based on your data access patterns.

**Note**  
For RDS for Oracle DB instances, you can add a storage volume with the minimum storage size of 200 GiB.

You can add, modify, or remove additional storage volumes using the AWS Management Console or AWS CLI. You can configure the volumes with different allocated storage, IOPS, and throughput settings. For example, you might place high-performance data on an io2 volume and historical data on a gp3 volume.

The additional volumes must use the volume names shown in the following table.


| RDS for Oracle volume name | RDS for SQL Server volume name | 
| --- | --- | 
| rdsdbdata2 | H: | 
| rdsdbdata3 | I: | 
| rdsdbdata4 | J: | 

## Console
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**To add an additional storage volume to a DB instance**

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Amazon RDS console at [https://console.aws.amazon.com/rds/](https://console.aws.amazon.com/rds/).

1. In the navigation pane, choose **Databases**.

1. Choose the DB instance that you want to modify.

1. Choose **Modify**.

1. In the **Storage** section, choose **Add additional storage volume**.

1. Configure the additional storage volume:
   + **Volume name** – Choose `rdsdbdata2`, `rdsdbdata3`, or `rdsdbdata4`.
   + **Storage type** – Choose **General Purpose SSD (gp3)** or **Provisioned IOPS SSD (io2)**.
   + **Allocated storage** – Enter the storage size in GiB (minimum 200 GiB).
   + For io2 storage, configure **Provisioned IOPS**.
   + For gp3 storage, optionally configure **Storage throughput**.

1. Choose **Continue**.

1. When the settings are as you want them, choose **Modify DB instance**.

**Important**  
When you are adding an additional storage volume using the `modify-db-instance` operation, the RDS adds the storage volume immediately regardless of the `--no-apply-immediately` parameter. If you have other modifications in the request, RDS applies them based on the schedule modifications. See [Using the schedule modifications setting](USER_ModifyInstance.ApplyImmediately.md).

## AWS CLI
<a name="USER_PIOPS.ModifyingExisting.AdditionalVolumes.cli"></a>

To add an additional storage volume to a DB instance, use the AWS CLI command [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/rds/modify-db-instance.html](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/rds/modify-db-instance.html). Set the `--additional-storage-volumes` as a JSON array specifying the additional storage volumes to add or modify.

The following example adds an additional storage volume named `rdsdbdata2` with 5000 GiB of gp3 storage to `mydbinstance`. 

When you add an additional storage volume, RDS applies the change immediately regardless of the `--no-apply-immediately` parameter.

```
aws rds modify-db-instance \
    --db-instance-identifier mydbinstance \
    --additional-storage-volumes '[
        {
            "VolumeName": "rdsdbdata2",
            "StorageType": "gp3",
            "AllocatedStorage": 5000,
            "StorageThroughput": 725
        }
    ]'
```

## RDS API
<a name="USER_PIOPS.ModifyingExisting.AdditionalVolumes.api"></a>

To add an additional storage volume to a DB instance, use the Amazon RDS API operation [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/APIReference/API_ModifyDBInstance.html](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/APIReference/API_ModifyDBInstance.html). Set the `AdditionalStorageVolumes` parameter as an array of additional storage volume specifications.

When you are adding an additional storage volume using the ModifyDBInstance API operation, RDS adds the storage volume immediately regardless of the `ApplyImmediately` option being True or False.