This article explains how Boost Disk charges are calculated in Unity Build Automation and how to estimate whether enabling Boost Disks will be cost-effective for your build targets.
In this article
- How Boost Disk pricing works
- Understand Boost Disk sizes
- Calculate your monthly Boost Disk costs
- Estimate the impact on your Build Automation invoice
- Evaluate whether Boost Disks are right for your project
How Boost Disk pricing works
When you enable a Boost Disk for a build target, Build Automation automatically creates and manages a persistent disk in your project’s region. The disk is automatically attached to the build machine when the builds run, and your workspace data, such as source code and the Library cache, persists on the disk between builds.
Boost Disks are charged per build target because each Boost Disk is dedicated to a specific build target and cannot be shared across multiple targets.
The current pricing for Boost Disks is:
$0.30 per GB per month
At this time, Boost Disks are available in 512 GB sizes only.
Based on the current pricing model, a 512 GB Boost Disk costs approximately:
$154 per month per build target, or about $5.13 per day.
Charges only accumulate while a build target is configured to use Boost Disks. If you disable Boost Disks, change your caching strategy, or delete the build target, the associated storage charges stop accruing.
Understand Boost Disk sizes
Currently, Boost Disks are provisioned in 512 GB increments and are assigned to individual build targets.
Because each build target requires its own Boost Disk, costs scale with the number of build targets configured to use the feature.
For example:
- 1 build target using a 512 GB Boost Disk = approximately $154/month
- 2 build targets using 512 GB Boost Disks = approximately $308/month
- 3 build targets using 512 GB Boost Disks = approximately $462/month
Calculate your monthly Boost Disk costs
To estimate your monthly Boost Disk charges:
- Determine how many build targets are configured to use Boost Disks.
- Multiply the monthly cost per build target by the number of enabled targets.
Example
If you have 2 build targets configured to use Boost Disks for the entire month:
$154/month × 2 build targets = $308/month
In this scenario, your monthly Premium Storage charge would be approximately $308.
Estimate the impact on your Build Automation invoice
Boost Disks can reduce build times by preserving cached data between builds, which may lower your billable build minutes.
To evaluate the overall financial impact:
- Enable Boost Disks on one build target.
- Run an initial build.
- The first build typically shows limited benefit because assets must be imported and source code must be cloned.
- Run one or more incremental builds.
- Performance improvements are generally more noticeable from the second build onward.
- Compare the build duration before and after enabling Boost Disks.
- Calculate the reduction in billable build minutes based on your machine type and monthly build volume.
- Compare those savings against the monthly Boost Disk charge.
This comparison will help you estimate whether the reduction in build time offsets the additional Premium Storage costs.
Evaluate whether Boost Disks are right for your project
Boost Disks are most beneficial for projects that:
- Run frequent incremental builds.
- Have large asset libraries that require significant import time.
- Experience long build times due to repeated asset processing.
- Need faster feedback cycles for development teams.
We recommend enabling Boost Disks on a single build target and running several incremental builds to measure the performance improvement in your environment before enabling them across multiple targets.