i4i.12xlarge

Analysis

The i4i.12xlarge is a storage optimized instance in the i4i series with 48 vCPUs and 384 GiB of memory on Intel Xeon 8375C (Ice Lake) (up to 3.5 GHz), which makes it memory-heavy at 8 GiB of memory per vCPU.

Running it in N. Virginia instead of São Paulo saves $1,793 a month per instance: $4.12/hour against $6.57/hour, a 60% spread.

At $4.12/hour on demand in US East (N. Virginia), about $3,006 a month, the i4i.12xlarge is one of the cheaper ways to buy storage optimized capacity: only 21% of the 90 current storage optimized types cost less per vCPU-hour than its $0.0858.

Looking beyond its own line, 24 of 40 current types with 48 vCPUs and similar memory are cheaper. The cheapest of those is the r6g.12xlarge on AWS Graviton2 at $2.42/hour.

It has local instance storage (3 x 3750 GB NVMe SSD), which is fast but lost when the instance stops. Network: 28125 Megabit.

It is size 6 of 9 in the i4i series. Stepping up to the i4i.16xlarge gives 64 vCPUs and 512 GiB for $1,002 more a month. Dropping to the i4i.8xlarge saves $1,002 a month.

Reserving it for a year with no upfront payment cuts the Linux rate to $2.67/hour, which beats on demand once it runs more than 65% of the time; three years brings it to $1.91/hour, 54% below on demand. Windows Server roughly adds 54% to the bill at $6.33/hour, because the licence is charged per vCPU.