Provisioned IOPS (PIOPS) are designed to offer consistent and fast I/O performance for I/O intensive transactional database workloads. Unlike standard storage options, PIOPS provide a specified level of I/O performance and are suited for databases where the workload requires more than what is offered in normal burstable I/O scenarios. Standard storage options may not provide consistent performance and general SSD storage, while better than standard, still doesn't offer the predictability of PIOPS for high throughput databases. Magnetic storage, while still used for certain workloads, provides the lowest performance and thus is not appropriate for high I/O requirements.