When calculating read throughput, how do you treat items larger than 4 KB in size?

In Amazon DynamoDB, when calculating read throughput for items, the size of the items is critical. Each read capacity unit (RCU) allows you to read one item up to 4 KB in size in a strongly consistent manner or two items up to 4 KB in size in an eventually consistent manner.

When an item exceeds 4 KB, you must consider how many read capacity units it will consume based on its size. For example, if an item is 8 KB, it would require two read units because it exceeds the 4 KB threshold. The same logic applies to larger items; an item of 12 KB, for instance, would consume three read units (12 KB divided by 4 KB results in three units). Therefore, an item larger than 4 KB is treated by counting the total size in KB and then determining how many full 4 KB blocks fit into that size.

In the case given, counting an item sized greater than 4 KB as two read units is accurate under the assumption that the item is precisely 8 KB in size. This reasoning aligns with the DynamoDB capacity consumption rules, which dictate the number of read capacity units required based on item size. Understanding this is crucial for efficiently managing DynamoDB throughput