AWS Solutions Architect Exam > AWS Solutions Architect Notes > : Associate Level > Cheat Sheet: EC2 Instance Types
Cheat Sheet: EC2 Instance Types
1. Instance Family Overview
| Family | Primary Use Cases |
|---|---|
| General Purpose (T, M, A) | Balanced compute, memory, networking; web servers, code repositories, development environments |
| Compute Optimized (C) | High-performance processors; batch processing, media transcoding, gaming servers, scientific modeling |
| Memory Optimized (R, X, z, High Memory) | Large datasets in memory; databases, in-memory caches, real-time big data analytics |
| Storage Optimized (I, D, H) | High sequential read/write to local storage; data warehousing, distributed file systems, OLTP |
| Accelerated Computing (P, G, F, Inf, VT) | Hardware accelerators (GPUs, FPGAs); machine learning, graphics workloads, video encoding |
2. General Purpose Instances
2.1 T Family (Burstable Performance)
| Instance Type | Key Characteristics |
|---|---|
| T4g | Graviton2 ARM processors; lowest cost; up to 40% better price-performance vs T3 |
| T3/T3a | Unlimited mode available; baseline CPU with burst credits; T3a uses AMD processors (10% cost savings) |
| T2 | Previous generation; baseline CPU performance with burst credits |
- CPU Credits: Earn credits when idle, consume when bursting above baseline
- Unlimited Mode: Can burst beyond credits but incur charges
- Best for workloads with variable CPU usage patterns
2.2 M Family (Balanced)
| Instance Type | Key Characteristics |
|---|---|
| M7g | Graviton3 processors; best price-performance for general purpose; up to 25% better performance vs M6g |
| M6g/M6gd | Graviton2 ARM processors; up to 40% better price-performance vs M5; M6gd includes NVMe SSD |
| M6i/M6id | Intel 3rd gen Xeon; up to 15% better compute price-performance vs M5; M6id includes NVMe SSD |
| M6a | AMD 3rd gen EPYC; up to 35% better price-performance vs M5a |
| M5/M5a/M5n | M5a uses AMD (10% savings); M5n offers up to 100 Gbps networking |
2.3 A Family (ARM-based)
| Instance Type | Key Characteristics |
|---|---|
| A1 | Graviton processors; scale-out workloads; cost savings for ARM-compatible applications |
3. Compute Optimized Instances
3.1 C Family
| Instance Type | Key Characteristics |
|---|---|
| C7g/C7gd/C7gn | Graviton3; up to 25% better performance vs C6g; C7gn offers up to 200 Gbps networking |
| C6g/C6gd/C6gn | Graviton2; up to 40% better price-performance vs C5; C6gn offers up to 100 Gbps networking |
| C6i/C6id | Intel 3rd gen Xeon; up to 15% better compute price-performance vs C5; C6id includes NVMe SSD |
| C6a | AMD 3rd gen EPYC; up to 15% better price-performance vs C5a |
| C5/C5a/C5n | C5a uses AMD; C5n offers up to 100 Gbps networking for HPC workloads |
- Highest ratio of vCPU to memory among instance families
- Optimized for compute-bound applications
- Support Enhanced Networking for low latency and high PPS
4. Memory Optimized Instances
4.1 R Family (General Memory Intensive)
| Instance Type | Key Characteristics |
|---|---|
| R7g/R7gd | Graviton3; up to 30% better performance vs R6g; R7gd includes NVMe SSD |
| R6g/R6gd | Graviton2; up to 40% better price-performance vs R5; R6gd includes NVMe SSD |
| R6i/R6id | Intel 3rd gen Xeon; up to 15% better price-performance vs R5; R6id includes NVMe SSD |
| R6a | AMD 3rd gen EPYC; up to 35% better price-performance vs R5a |
| R5/R5a/R5b/R5n | R5b offers EBS-optimized by default; R5n offers up to 100 Gbps networking |
4.2 X Family (Extra Large Memory)
| Instance Type | Key Characteristics |
|---|---|
| X2idn/X2iedn/X2iezn | Up to 2 TiB RAM per vCPU; Intel 3rd gen Xeon; X2idn/X2iedn include NVMe SSD; X2iezn optimized for single-threaded performance |
| X2gd | Graviton2; up to 1 TiB RAM; up to 40% better price-performance vs X1 for memory-intensive workloads |
| X1e/X1 | X1e offers up to 3,904 GiB RAM; X1 offers up to 1,952 GiB RAM; SAP HANA certified |
4.3 z Family (High Frequency)
| Instance Type | Key Characteristics |
|---|---|
| z1d | Up to 4.0 GHz sustained all-core frequency; high memory per vCPU; NVMe SSD; EDA workloads |
4.4 High Memory
- u-6tb1, u-9tb1, u-12tb1, u-18tb1, u-24tb1: 6 TiB to 24 TiB of memory
- Purpose-built for large in-memory databases (SAP HANA)
- Available only as bare metal instances
5. Storage Optimized Instances
5.1 I Family (I/O Intensive)
| Instance Type | Key Characteristics |
|---|---|
| I4i | Intel 3rd gen Xeon; up to 30 TB NVMe SSD; up to 65% better compute price-performance vs I3 |
| I3/I3en | NVMe SSD storage; I3en offers up to 60 TB storage and 100 Gbps networking |
- Optimized for high random I/O performance
- NoSQL databases, transactional databases, data warehousing
5.2 D Family (Dense Storage)
| Instance Type | Key Characteristics |
|---|---|
| D3/D3en | HDD-based instance storage; up to 336 TB; lowest cost per TB; MapReduce, HDFS, distributed file systems |
| D2 | Previous generation; HDD-based; up to 48 TB |
5.3 H Family (HDD Optimized)
| Instance Type | Key Characteristics |
|---|---|
| H1 | Up to 16 TB HDD storage; high disk throughput; MapReduce, HDFS |
6. Accelerated Computing Instances
6.1 P Family (GPU Compute)
| Instance Type | Key Characteristics |
|---|---|
| P5 | NVIDIA H100 GPUs; up to 8 GPUs; 640 GB GPU memory; highest ML training performance |
| P4d/P4de | NVIDIA A100 GPUs; up to 8 GPUs; 400 Gbps networking; P4de offers 1.1 TB system memory |
| P3/P3dn | NVIDIA V100 GPUs; up to 8 GPUs; P3dn offers 100 Gbps networking |
| P2 | NVIDIA K80 GPUs; previous generation |
- Optimized for machine learning training, HPC, deep learning
- Support NVIDIA CUDA, cuDNN libraries
6.2 G Family (Graphics Intensive)
| Instance Type | Key Characteristics |
|---|---|
| G5g | Graviton2; ARM Mali GPUs; Android game streaming, graphics rendering |
| G5 | NVIDIA A10G GPUs; up to 8 GPUs; graphics workloads, ML inference, video encoding |
| G4dn | NVIDIA T4 GPUs; up to 8 GPUs; ML inference, graphics, video transcoding |
| G4ad | AMD Radeon Pro V520 GPUs; up to 4 GPUs; graphics workloads |
| G3 | NVIDIA M60 GPUs; previous generation |
6.3 F Family (FPGA)
| Instance Type | Key Characteristics |
|---|---|
| F1 | Xilinx UltraScale+ FPGAs; up to 8 FPGAs; custom hardware acceleration, genomics, financial analytics |
6.4 Inf Family (Inferentia)
| Instance Type | Key Characteristics |
|---|---|
| Inf2 | AWS Inferentia2 chips; up to 12 accelerators; up to 4x higher throughput vs Inf1; lowest cost for ML inference |
| Inf1 | AWS Inferentia chips; up to 16 accelerators; ML inference workloads |
6.5 VT Family (Video Transcoding)
| Instance Type | Key Characteristics |
|---|---|
| VT1 | Xilinx U30 media accelerators; up to 8 accelerators; real-time video transcoding |
6.6 DL Family (Deep Learning)
| Instance Type | Key Characteristics |
|---|---|
| DL1 | Gaudi accelerators by Habana Labs; up to 8 accelerators; deep learning training |
6.7 Trn Family (Trainium)
| Instance Type | Key Characteristics |
|---|---|
| Trn1/Trn1n | AWS Trainium chips; up to 16 accelerators; deep learning training; up to 40% cost savings vs P4d; Trn1n offers 1600 Gbps networking |
7. Instance Naming Convention
| Component | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Instance Family (e.g., m, c, r) | Indicates workload type (general, compute, memory, etc.) |
| Generation (e.g., 5, 6, 7) | Higher number = newer generation |
| Additional Capabilities | a=AMD, g=Graviton, n=network optimized, d=NVMe, e=extra capacity, z=high frequency, b=block storage, dn=dense storage with network |
| Size (e.g., nano, micro, small, medium, large, xlarge, 2xlarge) | Resource scale within family |
- Example: m6i.2xlarge = M family, 6th gen, Intel, 2xlarge size
- Example: c7g.xlarge = C family, 7th gen, Graviton, xlarge size
- Example: r5d.4xlarge = R family, 5th gen, NVMe SSD, 4xlarge size
8. Key Selection Criteria
8.1 By Workload Type
| Workload | Recommended Family |
|---|---|
| Web servers, app servers | T (variable traffic), M (steady traffic) |
| Batch processing, HPC | C (compute optimized) |
| In-memory databases, caches | R, X (memory optimized) |
| NoSQL databases, data warehousing | I (storage optimized with NVMe) |
| Big data, Hadoop, distributed file systems | D (dense HDD storage) |
| ML training (large models) | P, Trn (GPU/accelerators) |
| ML inference | Inf, G4dn (purpose-built inference) |
| Graphics, video encoding | G (graphics optimized) |
8.2 Processor Comparison
| Processor Type | Key Points |
|---|---|
| Graviton (ARM) | Up to 40% better price-performance; best for scale-out workloads; requires ARM-compatible code |
| Intel Xeon | Broad software compatibility; higher single-threaded performance options |
| AMD EPYC | 10-35% cost savings vs Intel equivalents; excellent multi-threaded performance |
8.3 Network Performance Tiers
- Low to Moderate: Up to 10 Gbps (T, smaller M/C/R sizes)
- Up to 25 Gbps: Standard enhanced networking
- Up to 100 Gbps: High-throughput instances (C5n, M5n, R5n, I3en, P3dn)
- Up to 200 Gbps: Latest generation (C7gn)
- Up to 400 Gbps: P4d instances
- Up to 1600 Gbps: Trn1n instances
8.4 Instance Storage Options
| Storage Type | Instances |
|---|---|
| EBS-only | Most instance types by default (M6i, C6i, R6i) |
| NVMe SSD | Instances with 'd' suffix (M6gd, C6id, I4i, I3); high IOPS and throughput |
| HDD | D3, D2, H1; high sequential throughput, lower cost per TB |
- Instance store data is ephemeral (lost on stop/termination)
- NVMe provides lower latency than EBS
9. Purchasing Options Impact
| Option | Key Characteristics |
|---|---|
| On-Demand | No commitment; pay per second (Linux) or hour (Windows); highest cost |
| Reserved Instances | 1 or 3 year commitment; up to 72% savings; standard or convertible |
| Savings Plans | Flexible commitment to compute spend; up to 72% savings; applies across instance families |
| Spot Instances | Up to 90% savings; can be interrupted; fault-tolerant workloads only |
| Dedicated Hosts | Physical server dedicated to your use; compliance, licensing requirements |
| Dedicated Instances | Instances run on hardware dedicated to single customer; no other customers share hardware |
10. Special Considerations
10.1 Bare Metal Instances
- Direct access to physical server; no virtualization overhead
- Available in M5, M6i, C5, C6i, R5, R6i, I3, I4i families and High Memory
- Use cases: workloads requiring access to hardware features, non-virtualized environments, licensing restrictions
10.2 Enhanced Networking
- Elastic Network Adapter (ENA): Up to 100 Gbps; most current generation instances
- Intel 82599 VF: Up to 10 Gbps; older instance types
- Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA): HPC and ML workloads; OS-bypass for low latency; P4d, P5, C6gn, C7gn
10.3 Placement Groups
- Cluster: Low latency, high throughput within single AZ; HPC workloads
- Partition: Spreads instances across logical partitions; distributed databases like Hadoop, Cassandra
- Spread: Each instance on distinct hardware; small number of critical instances
10.4 Nitro System
- Underlying platform for modern EC2 instances (5th gen and later)
- Dedicated hardware for storage, networking, security
- Benefits: better performance, enhanced security, faster innovation, lower cost
- Enables bare metal instances and higher network speeds
10.5 Instance Size Selection
- Start small, scale vertically based on CloudWatch metrics
- Monitor CPU, memory, network, disk I/O utilization
- Each size doubling: 2x vCPU, 2x memory, proportional network increase
- Some features only available at certain sizes (e.g., enhanced networking at large and above)
11. Quick Reference: Top Instance Types
11.1 Most Common for Web Applications
- T3/T3a: Development, test environments, low-traffic web servers
- M6i/M6a: Production web applications, microservices
- C6i/C6a: High-traffic web servers, API backends
11.2 Most Common for Databases
- R6i/R6g: General purpose databases (RDS alternative)
- X2gd/X2idn: Large in-memory databases, SAP HANA
- I4i/I3en: High-performance NoSQL (Cassandra, MongoDB)
11.3 Most Common for Big Data
- D3/D3en: HDFS, MapReduce data nodes
- I4i/I3en: High-performance analytics
- M6i/C6i: Master nodes, compute-heavy analytics
11.4 Cost Optimization Picks
- T4g: Lowest cost general purpose (ARM)
- M6g/C6g/R6g: Best price-performance with Graviton2
- M6a/C6a/R6a: AMD options for 10-35% savings over Intel
- Spot + T3/M6i/C6i: Up to 90% savings for fault-tolerant workloads
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Apr 20, 2026 Last updated
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