The Cloud Object Storage service provides the storage buckets for workspaces. The plan you select and the features and capabilities that you use affect your cost.
The IBM Cloud Object Storage services has the following plans:
Lite plan (30 day trial)
Starting 1 July 2024, if you sign up for a 30 day trial version of watsonx.ai and watsonx.governance, a Cloud Object Storage Lite plan is automatically provisioned for you. The Lite plan expires at the end of the 30 day trial. You can upgrade to the Standard plan with the Free Tier at any time during the trial period.
The Lite plan has a storage limit of 25 GB per month.
Lite plan (deprecated)
If you signed up for Cloud Pak for Data as a Service prior to 1 July 2024, a Cloud Object Storage Lite plan with unlimited duration was automatically provisioned for you. The Lite plan has a storage limit of 25 GB per month.
The Lite plan with unlimited duration is deprecated and might be removed on 15 December 2024. To retain your data and other assets, you must upgrade your Cloud Object Storage service to a Standard plan before 15 December 2024. If you do not upgrade your Cloud Object Storage plan to Standard, your workspaces might become inaccessible after 15 December 2024, and your data might be permanently deleted.
You can switch from the Lite plan to the Free Tier of the Standard plan at any time before 15 December 2024. To switch your plan, see Cloud docs: How do I upgrade a service instance from a Lite Plan to a Standard Plan?. You might need to upgrade your IBM Cloud account before you can switch to the Standard plan. To upgrade your account, see Update your IBM Cloud account.
Standard plan
The Standard plan is a pay-as-you-go plan with no minimum fee. The Standard plan has a choice of storage classes, including a Free Tier, which allows 5 GB of usage for 12 months. To select the Free Tier, choose Smart Tier for your bucket storage class. You pay only for what you use beyond your Free Tier allowance.
The Free Tier allowance is limited to the following usage per month for a duration of 12 months from your sign-up date:
- Storage up to 5 GB
- Up to 20,000 GET requests
- Up to 2000 PUT requests
- Up to Data Retrieval 10 GB
- Up to 5 GB Public Outbound
These limits apply to the aggregate total across all Smart Tier buckets and Cloud Object Storage instances within your account. You are billed at standard pay-as-you-go rates after 12 months or when you exceed the Free Tier limits.
You can pay extra for archiving your data.
For more information on pricing, see IBM Cloud docs: IBM Cloud Object Storage pricing.
One Rate plan
The One Rate plan offers a flat monthly charge that includes capacity and built-in allowances for outbound bandwidth and data access. This plan is best suited for active workloads with large amounts of outbound bandwidth as a percent of their storage capacity.
Learn more
- IBM Cloud Object Storage docs: Getting started with IBM Cloud Object Storage
- IBM Cloud docs: IBM Cloud Object Storage pricing
- Cloud Object Storage pricing
- Object storage for workspaces
- Managing storage space in Cloud Object Storage
- Setting up IBM Cloud Object Storage for the platform
Parent topic: IBM Cloud Object Storage