Instance Types Deep Dive

Comprehensive Guide to EC2 Instance Families

General Purpose

T3/T4g (Burstable)

Baseline performance with burst capability

M5/M6i (Balanced)

Balanced compute, memory, and networking

A1 (ARM-based)

AWS Graviton processors, cost-effective

Compute Optimized

C5/C6i

High-performance processors for CPU-intensive tasks

Use Cases

  • • Web servers
  • • Scientific computing
  • • High-performance computing (HPC)
  • • Gaming servers

Memory Optimized

R5/R6i

High memory-to-vCPU ratio

X1e/X2gd

Extreme memory for large datasets

z1d

High frequency processors + NVMe SSD

Storage Optimized

I3/I4i

NVMe SSD-backed instance storage

D2/D3

Dense HDD storage for distributed workloads

Instance Selection Best Practices

  • • Start with T3 instances for variable workloads
  • • Use M5 for balanced workloads requiring consistent performance
  • • Choose C5 for CPU-intensive applications
  • • Select R5 for memory-intensive databases and analytics
  • • Consider Graviton2 instances (A1, M6g, C6g, R6g) for cost savings
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