r5ad.2xlarge

Analysis

The r5ad.2xlarge is a memory optimized instance in the r5ad series with 8 vCPUs and 64 GiB of memory on AMD EPYC 7571 (up to 2.5 GHz), which makes it memory-heavy at 8 GiB of memory per vCPU.

Running it in Mumbai instead of São Paulo saves $365 a month per instance: $0.3320/hour against $0.8320/hour, a 151% spread.

Within the same generation and size, the r5a.2xlarge on AMD EPYC 7571 costs $0.4520/hour, 14% less ($52.56 a month). The other variants are the r5.2xlarge at $0.5040, the r5d.2xlarge at $0.5760 and the r5n.2xlarge at $0.5960.

At $0.5240/hour on demand in US East (N. Virginia), about $383 a month, the r5ad.2xlarge is one of the cheaper ways to buy memory optimized capacity: only 22% of the 385 current memory optimized types cost less per vCPU-hour than its $0.0655.

It has local instance storage (1 x 300 GB NVMe SSD), which is fast but lost when the instance stops. Network: Up to 10 Gigabit.

Looking beyond its own line, 9 of 45 current types with 8 vCPUs and similar memory are cheaper. The cheapest of those is the r6g.2xlarge on AWS Graviton2 at $0.4032/hour.

Reserving it for a year with no upfront payment cuts the Linux rate to $0.3300/hour, which beats on demand once it runs more than 63% of the time; three years brings it to $0.2260/hour, 57% below on demand. Windows Server roughly adds 70% to the bill at $0.8920/hour, because the licence is charged per vCPU.