r5ad.xlarge

Analysis

The r5ad.xlarge is a memory optimized instance in the r5ad series with 4 vCPUs and 32 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 $182 a month per instance: $0.1660/hour against $0.4160/hour, a 151% spread.

Within the same generation and size, the r5a.xlarge on AMD EPYC 7571 costs $0.2260/hour, 14% less ($26.28 a month). The other variants are the r5.xlarge at $0.2520, the r5d.xlarge at $0.2880 and the r5n.xlarge at $0.2980.

At $0.2620/hour on demand in US East (N. Virginia), about $191 a month, the r5ad.xlarge 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 150 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 4 vCPUs and similar memory are cheaper. The cheapest of those is the r6g.xlarge on AWS Graviton2 at $0.2016/hour.

Reserving it for a year with no upfront payment cuts the Linux rate to $0.1650/hour, which beats on demand once it runs more than 63% of the time; three years brings it to $0.1130/hour, 57% below on demand. Windows Server roughly adds 70% to the bill at $0.4460/hour, because the licence is charged per vCPU.