Advice/experience using micro & small instances

[Ben Oliver]

I have an SQL instance running, I've been pleased with the service so far but as a db-n1-standard-1 the cost is quite high for my usage level.

I went to downgrade and saw the warning that it is not recommended for production use.

I just wanted to know what your experiences were with the smaller options.

I'm perhaps in a bit of a niche - it's a production DB but with extremely low size and use. It maybe gets accessed by customers twice a week! We would never even come close to hitting the usage limits.

[Karthick (Cloud Platform Support)]

Hello, 

It is advised to choose a machine type with enough memory to hold your largest table for a better performance. You can read this FAQ here for maximum concurrent limits on both micro and small instances. But having said that, you can change an instance's tier at any time, with few seconds to minutes of downtime depending on the type of SQL you use [1], during when maintenance window is advised. 

[1] https://cloud.google.com/sql/pricing 

[Ashley Asmus]

Hi Ben,

I'm in the same boat. I have a small ecological database that will be accessed by only five data nerds, and would have *plenty* of room even in the micro instance. Have you had any luck or experience using micro? I'd like to press the downsize button before my free credit runs dry...

Best,

Ashley

[George (Cloud Platform Support)]

In support of Karthick's advice: you may follow this guide to change your instance type and save money. If database is accessed about twice a week, the maintenance window involved in this operation cannot possibly affect your Customer much.