From d78d012b69cf6f85c3873ac5b9ffd2c7f485922d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Michele Cereda Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2026 23:03:56 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] chore(kb/aws/rds): improve clarity --- knowledge base/cloud computing/aws/rds.md | 27 ++++++++++++++++++----- 1 file changed, 21 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-) diff --git a/knowledge base/cloud computing/aws/rds.md b/knowledge base/cloud computing/aws/rds.md index 00f692a..12bdfc2 100644 --- a/knowledge base/cloud computing/aws/rds.md +++ b/knowledge base/cloud computing/aws/rds.md @@ -331,6 +331,12 @@ created manual snapshots to recover it. Taking backups can be unbearably slow depending on the amount of data needing to be copied.
For reference, the first snapshot of a DB instance with standard 100 GiB `gp3` storage took about 3h to complete. +AWS charges only for snapshots that one owns. Public snapshots _owned by other accounts_ are **not** counted.
+AWS does **not** charge for backup storage of **automated** snapshots up to the size of an RDS instance, as long as +that instance is active. Any backup storage beyond this incurs additional charges.
+Manual snapshots are billed **entirely** based on their storage usage.
+Cross-region snapshot copies also incur additional transfer and storage charges in the destination region. + ### Automatic backups Automatic backups are storage volume snapshots of **entire** DB instances. @@ -369,13 +375,14 @@ Automated backups will **not** occur while a DB snapshot copy is running in the ### Manual backups Back up DB instances manually by creating DB snapshots.
-The first snapshot contains the data for the full database. Subsequent snapshots of the same database are incremental. +The first snapshot contains the data for the **full** database. Subsequent snapshots of the same database are +**incremental**. One can copy both automatic and manual DB snapshots, but only share manual DB snapshots. -Manual snapshots **never** expire and are retained indefinitely. +Manual snapshots **never** expire and are retained until explicitly deleted. -One can store up to 100 manual snapshots per Region. +One can store up to **100** manual snapshots per Region. ### Export snapshots to S3 @@ -1022,7 +1029,7 @@ Impacting factors (from most to least impactful): 1. Storage type and capacity. 1. Backup storage. - Backup storage up to 100% of one's total database storage (per region) is free.
+ Backup storage _for automatic snapshots_ up to 100% of one's total database storage (per region) is free.
Additional backup storage costs ~$0.095 per GB-month (`us-east-1`).
[Exporting snapshots to S3][export snapshots to s3] costs ~$0.10 per GB (`us-east-1`). @@ -1043,6 +1050,10 @@ Impacting factors (from most to least impactful): 1. Zero-ETL integrations. 1. Extended support. +1. Networking. + + Public IPv4 addresses associated with resources launched in a VPC are charged at standard rates.
+ This rate is $0.005/h as of 20126-02-13, and is charged in 1s increments for a minimum of 60s. ### Cost-saving measures @@ -1050,9 +1061,9 @@ Impacting factors (from most to least impactful): Consider changing them more appropriate ones (more recent, smaller, or Graviton-based) every few months. - Consider leveraging [reserved instances][rds reserved instances]. - Prefer using _Standard RIs_ when sticking with one instance type and **not** needing changing it for the **entire** + Prefer using _Standard_ RIs when sticking with one instance type and **not** needing changing it for the **entire** duration of a reservation.
- Otherwise, prefer _Convertible RIs_ for flexibility. + Otherwise, prefer _Convertible_ (A.K.A. _Size-flexible_) RIs for flexibility. RDS does **not** support Savings Plans at the time of writing. @@ -1146,6 +1157,7 @@ or write workloads and exceeds the instance type quotas. - [Kyle Kingsbury's Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL 17.4 analysis] - [AWS RDS Max Connections Limit As Per Instance Type] - [Amazon RDS and Aurora credentials format] +- [Amazon RDS: Snapshot, restore, and recovery demystified] ### Sources @@ -1168,6 +1180,7 @@ or write workloads and exceeds the instance type quotas. - [Disabling AWS RDS backups when creating/updating instances?] - [Viewing instance status] - [Recommended alarms for RDS] +- [Working With Amazon RDS Snapshots: The Basics and a Quick Tutorial]