In November 2021, we launched the memory-optimized Amazon EC2 R6i instances, our sixth-generation x86-based offering powered by 3rd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors (code named Ice Lake).

Today I am excited to announce a disk variant of the R6i instance: the Amazon EC2 R6id instances with non-volatile memory express (NVMe) SSD local instance storage. The R6id instances are designed to power applications that require low storage latency or require temporary swap space.

Customers with workloads that require access to high-speed, low-latency storage, including those that need temporary storage for scratch space, temporary files, and caches, have the option to choose the R6id instances with NVMe local instance storage of up to 7.6 TB. The new instances are also available as bare-metal instances to support workloads that benefit from direct access to physical resources.

Here’s some background on what led to the development of the sixth-generation instances. Our customers who are currently using fifth-generation instances are looking for the following:

Higher Compute Performance – Higher CPU performance to improve latency and processing time for their workloads
Improved Price Performance – Customers are very sensitive to price performance to optimize costs
Larger Sizes – Customers require larger sizes to scale their enterprise databases
Higher Amazon EBS Performance – Customers have requested higher Amazon EBS throughput (“at least double”) to improve response times for their analytics applications
Local Storage – Large customers have expressed a need for more local storage per vCPU

Sixth-generation instances address these requirements by offering generational improvement across the board, including 15 percent increase in price performance, 33 percent more vCPUs, up to 1 TB memory, 2x networking performance, 2x EBS performance, and global availability.

Compared to R5d instances, the R6id instances offer:

Larger instance size (.32xlarge) with 128 vCPUs and 1024 GiB of memory, enabling customers to consolidate their workloads and scale up applications.
Up to 15 percent improvement in compute price performance and 20 percent higher memory bandwidth.
Up to 58 percent higher storage per vCPU and 34 percent lower cost per TB.
Up to 50 Gbps network bandwidth and up to 40 Gbps EBS bandwidth; EBS burst bandwidth support for sizes up to .4xlarge.
Always-on memory encryption.
Support for new Intel Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX 512) instructions such as VAES, VCLMUL, VPCLMULQDQ, and GFNI for faster execution of cryptographic algorithms such as those used in IPSec and TLS implementations.

The detailed specifications of the R6id instances are as follows:

Instance Name

vCPUs
RAM (GiB)

Local NVMe SSD Storage (GB)

EBS Throughput (Gbps)

Network Bandwidth (Gbps)

r6id.large
2
16
1 x 118
Up to 10
Up to 12.5

r6id.xlarge
4
32
1 x 237
Up to 10
Up to 12.5

r6id.2xlarge
8
64
1 x 474
Up to 10
Up to 12.5

r6id.4xlarge
16
128
1 x 950
Up to 10
Up to 12.5

r6id.8xlarge
32
256
1 x 1900
10
12.5

r6id.12xlarge
48
384
2 x 1425
15
18.75

r6id.16xlarge
64
512
2 x 1900
20
25

r6id.24xlarge
96
768
4 x 1425
30
37.5

r6id.32xlarge
128
1024
4 x 1900
40
50

r6id.metal
128
1024
4 x 1900
40
50

Now available

The R6id instances are available today in the AWS US East (Ohio), US East (N.Virginia), US West (Oregon), and Europe (Ireland) Regions as On-Demand, Spot, and Reserved Instances or as part of a Savings Plan. As usual, with EC2, you pay for what you use. For more information, see the Amazon EC2 pricing page.

To learn more, visit our Amazon EC2 R6i instances page, and please send feedback to AWS re:Post for EC2 or through your usual AWS Support contacts.

– Veliswa x