Which Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) volume type has the highest maximum IOPS?

The Provisioned IOPS Solid State Drive (SSD) volume type is designed to deliver the highest maximum IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second) performance among the various Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) volume types. This type of volume is particularly well-suited for I/O-intensive applications such as databases, where consistent and low-latency performance is crucial.

With Provisioned IOPS, users can specify the number of IOPS they need, with the ability to provision up to 64,000 IOPS per volume when using the appropriate instance types. This capability allows for optimized performance for workloads that demand high levels of input/output operations, making it an ideal choice for scenarios requiring fast, reliable data access.

In contrast, the General Purpose SSD (gp2) volume type offers good performance for a variety of workloads but has a lower maximum IOPS limit compared to Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes. The Cold HDD (sc1) and Throughput Optimized HDD (st1) volume types are designed more for cost-efficient storage options for less frequently accessed data and throughput-optimized workloads, respectively, and therefore do not provide the high IOPS performance that Provisioned IOPS SSDs can deliver.