An application requires a temporary, high-speed cache on an EC2 host. The cache is frequently updated and does not need to persist across instance reboots. Which storage choice will deliver the best possible performance for this cache?

The EC2 instance store provides temporary block-level storage for an instance. It is physically attached to the host computer and offers the highest disk I/O performance, making it ideal for temporary caches that don't require data persistence beyond the instance's lifecycle. General Purpose SSD (gp3) and Provisioned IOPS SSD (io2) Amazon EBS volumes offer persistent storage with varying performance characteristics, but they are network-attached, introducing latency compared to instance store. Throughput Optimized HDD (st1) is designed for large, sequential workloads and is not suitable for high-speed, frequently updated caches due to its lower IOPS and higher latency.