title: AWS RDS instance upgrade down time
body: <p>I have a few questions in regards to upgrading the RDS instance.</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>What is the downtime when upgrading the instance from let's say small to large. Is the downtime relatively similar when you go and change any instance type(small, large, xlarge) or are there determining factors such as database size that alter the timing.</li>
  <li>Can anyone share a technique of how to upgrade the instance type avoiding the downtime using RDS? Is that even possible in RDS. It doesn't have to be in great detail just some cliff-notes/big-picture stuff.</li>
  <li>Is there down time when you allocate more disk space?</li>
  </ol>