The price also increases proportionally and is twice higher for each larger instance compared to its smaller “neighbor”.
This means that this instance uses local Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) solid-state drive (SSD) storage, which provides the highest performance of the storage subsystem for the instance. In our R5d.xlarge instance, d represents the additional capability. The bold letters can help you remember the associations.
The letters used in the instance name and the associated properties are explained in the table below. Additional capabilityĪdditional capability represents additional hardware features for AWS machine types. Currently, the generation range for AWS EC2 instances is from 1 to 6, but generations 1, 2 and 3 may no longer be available for many instance types. It makes sense to use an older generation if you need to run EC2 instances on servers with specific hardware. In general, use the latest generation for your instances as it provides the best pricing and efficiency. As of February 2022, 6 is the latest generation for instances of the R family with generations 4 and 5 also still available. In our example, 5 is the instance generation of the R5d.xlarge instance. Usually, the last two or three generations are available. As Amazon deploys new servers in their data centers to provide the resources for running more instances by customers, these new servers have new hardware that is usually better than that of previous generations. This is true for instance families that have been available for a long time now. You may notice that many instance families have multiple generations (newer and older ones). Instance generationĪn instance generation represents instances of the same family running on servers of different hardware generations in AWS. One instance family can belong to only one EC2 instance type. One instance type can contain one or multiple families. This is a generic family for memory-optimized instances.Įach family provides its own hardware-backed features. R is the instance family or instance class in our example. It also identifies the ratio between hardware components (such as processor, memory and storage) in the instance specification. Let’s break down instance naming using the example of the R5d.xlarge instance.Īn EC2 instance family or instance class represents instances with a similar purpose. They are reflected in instance types and names.Īn EC2 instance type consists of multiple parameters: Servers have different hardware sets, and EC2 instances can use different amounts of hardware capacity. However, there is a logic behind the naming convention for AWS EC2 instances, and the name contains instance specifications.ĪWS EC2 instances are virtual machines running on physical servers in Amazon data centers. AWS EC2 instance types are represented as a mix of letters and digits. Classification of AWS EC2 TypesĪt first glance, AWS EC2 instance names look confusing. Watch this webinar about creating a disaster recovery plan to learn more. When using the Amazon cloud with EC2 instances as the main environment or in disaster recovery scenarios, you should have a disaster recovery plan to reduce downtime and avoid data loss.