PolarDB：Storage plans

If the storage billing method of your PolarDB cluster is pay-as-you-go, you are charged for the storage usage based on the amount of the stored data and the storage duration. If your business requires a large amount of data, such as 1,000 GB or more, we recommend that you use storage plans to reduce storage costs.

For example, a monthly storage plan provides 10% to 45% discount compared with the charges billed by using the pay-as-you-go storage billing method for the same cluster storage usage. Storage plans that have longer durations provide greater discounts. If you purchase an annual storage plan, you can obtain an additional 15% discount on the monthly price.

Usage notes

• Only billing is involved when you purchase, upgrade, renew, or unsubscribe from storage plans. Your business operations are not affected by the operations.

• Storage plans are divided into two types: one type applicable to regions in the Chinese mainland and one type applicable to China (Hong Kong) and regions outside China. Each type can be shared by all PolarDB clusters in the specified region category.

• If your storage plan is exhausted, you are charged for the excess storage usage based on the pay-as-you-go billing method.

• If the capacity of your storage plan is insufficient, you can purchase a new storage plan or upgrade your current storage plan.

• After you purchase a storage plan, you are not charged for the storage usage on an hourly basis. Instead, the storage plan offsets your storage usage based on the offset rules for the storage usage.

• If your storage plan is exhausted, you are charged for the excess storage usage based on the pay-as-you-go billing method.

  For example, you have three PolarDB clusters that each have a storage capacity of 400 GB. You can purchase a storage plan of 1,000 GB for the three clusters. The excess 200 GB storage usage is billed based on the pay-as-you-go billing method.

Prices

The prices of storage plans vary based on the subscription duration and specifications. The higher the specifications and the longer the subscription duration, the more cost-effective the storage plan. For information about the prices of storage plans, see Prices in the following table. The offset rules vary based on the storage category. For more information, see the "Offset rules" section of this topic.

Offset rules

A storage plan provides a fixed hourly quota to offset the storage usage of clusters that use the pay-as-you-go storage billing method and the storage usage of level-1 backups/data backups, level-2 backups, log backups, and cold data archiving. For example, if you purchase a storage plan of 50 GB, you are provided a fixed quota of 50 GB per hour to offset your storage usage within the validity period of the storage plan.

Cluster storage usage

Backup storage usage (level-1 backups/data backups, level-2 backups, and log backups)

Cold data archiving

Offset order

Best practices

• pay-as-you-go storage billing method + storage plans and subscription storage billing method

  • Subscription storage billing method: If the storage usage of your cluster is small and stable, select this billing method.

    The subscription storage price per GB-month is approximately 65% of the corresponding pay-as-you-go storage price.

  • Pay-as-you-go storage billing method + storage plans: If the storage usage of your cluster is large and fluctuates, select this billing method.

    However, if you prefer the subscription model, we recommend that you specify a storage amount larger than your estimated storage amount to prevent fees from being generated when you exceed the subscribed amount.

    If you purchase a storage plan of more than 10,000 GB, the price is 55% to 60% of the corresponding pay-as-you-go price. If the storage plans fully offset your storage usage, the cost per GB is lower than the subscription price.

  Note

  If you use the subscription storage billing method, you must reserve more than 20% of the storage space. If the total storage usage of all PolarDB clusters in your Alibaba Cloud account reaches 3,000 GB, the pay-as-you-go storage billing method + storage plans solution is more cost effective. The following example calculates the storage cost of clusters that use the PSL5 storage type and for which the hot standby storage cluster feature is enabled. For other storage types, calculate based on the offset factors.

  • Subscription storage billing method: You must reserve more than 20% of storage space. If the total storage usage is 3,000 GB, you require a storage capacity of 3,600 GB, and the price is 3600 GB × USD 0.365 per GB-month = USD 1314 per-month.

  • Pay-as-you-go storage billing method + storage plans]: Based on the offset rules of storage plans, if the cluster uses the PSL5 storage type and has hot standby storage cluster enabled, a 1-GB storage plan can offset 1-GB storage usage. Therefore, if the total storage usage is 3,000 GB and you purchase a 3,000 GB storage plan, the price is USD 1,210 per month.

• Evaluate the required storage plan specifications

  • If you have purchased a PolarDB cluster, estimate the required storage plan capacity.

    • System estimation

      Log on to the PolarDB console. On the Overview page, select Storage Plan Capacity Estimation on the right side of the All Cluster Data section to estimate the storage capacity of all PolarDB clusters in your Alibaba Cloud account.

      Note

      • The Required Storage Capacity calculated in the Storage Plan Capacity Estimation dialog box does not include the storage plans that you purchased. For example, if you purchased a 100-GB storage plan applicable to the regions in the Chinese mainland, the 333.53 GB calculated in the preceding figure does not take into account the 100-GB storage plan that you have purchased. Therefore, you need to only purchase an additional storage plan of 233.53 GB.

      • The calculation in the Storage Plan Capacity Estimation does not include the backup storage usage in the cluster recycle bin, the cold data archiving storage usage, and the data storage usage of Standard Edition clusters.

    • Self-estimation

      1. View the different types of storage usage of all clusters. For more information, see View the database storage usage, View the backup storage usage, and View information about the cold data archived in OSS.

      2. Estimate the required storage plan capacity based on the offset rules of each type of storage usage. For more information, see the "Offset rules for cluster storage usage" section, the "Offset rules for backup storage usage (level-1 backups/data backups, level-2 backups, and log backups)" section, and the "Offset rules for cold data archiving storage usage" of this topic.

• How do I combine storage plans?

  You can combine storage plans by using one of the following methods:

  • The higher the storage plan specifications, the greater the discount. We recommend that you select a storage plan specification that is slightly larger than your storage usage.

  • You can combine multiple storage plans to meet the specifications requirements that are not supported by the available storage plans. For example, if your storage amount is close to 1,600 GB, you can purchase a 1,000-GB storage plan, a 500-GB storage plan, and a 100-GB storage plan.

  You can select a storage plan based on the actual storage amount and the price of the storage plans. Example:

  If the storage amount of your business is close to 45,000 GB, the following storage plan solutions can be used. In this example, the storage plans applicable to the regions in the Chinese mainland is used.

  • Solution 1: Purchase a 50,000-GB storage plan. The price is USD 14,860 per month.

  • Solution 2: Purchase a 30,000-GB storage plan, a 10,000-GB storage plan, and a 5,000-GB storage plan. The price is 9,760 + 3,260 + 2,020 = USD 15,040 per month.

  • Solution 3: Purchase a 30,000-GB storage plan, a 10,000-GB storage plan, a 3,000-GB storage plan, and a 2,000-GB storage plan. The price is 9,760 + 3,260 + 1,210 + 980=USD 15,210 per month.

  The 50,000-GB storage plan of solution 1 is more cost effective.

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