Instances›AWS EC2›h1›h1.16xlarge
Compute
vCPUs64
Memory256 GiB
Mem / vCPU4.00 GiB
ProcessorXeon E5-2686 v4
Clock speed2.3 GHz
Architecturex86_64
Storage
Type8 × 2,000 GB HDD
Bandwidth14,000 Mbps
Throughput1750 MB/s
IOPS80,000
Networking
Performance25 Gigabit
Max ENIs8
IPv6Yes
GPUNone
Family sizes
h1.2xlarge8 vCPU · 32 GiB
h1.4xlarge16 vCPU · 64 GiB
h1.8xlarge32 vCPU · 128 GiB
h1.16xlarge64 vCPU · 256 GiB
h1.16xlarge

h1.16xlarge is AWS's storage-optimized EC2 size at 64 vCPU and 256 GiB. In the name, "h" is dense HDD storage, "1" is the generation and "16xlarge" is the size within the h1 family. It runs on Intel Xeon E5-2686 v4 (Broadwell) at 2.3 GHz, and AWS introduced it in November 2017. h1 is the current generation of the h family, so there is no newer AWS size to migrate to. The closest Spot shape is gp.vs1.2xlarge at 16 vCPU, so this instance maps to 4 of them — 64 vCPU and 256 GiB across the fleet, $3.74/hr on AWS in US East (N. Virginia), from $0.164/hr on Rackspace Spot. Spot delivers compute as managed Kubernetes, so a node pool of that size is the native shape of the answer rather than a workaround — provided the workload scales horizontally.

Match qualityScale-out match

h1.16xlarge gives you 64 vCPU and 256 GiB in a single machine. The largest comparable Spot node, gp.vs1.2xlarge, is 16 vCPU and 64 GiB, so the equivalent here is 4 nodes rather than one.

Spot runs as managed Kubernetes, so a 4-node pool is the normal way to run things rather than a workaround. If your workload already sits behind a load balancer, a queue or a scheduler, it spreads across them without changes. If it needs all 64 cores and 256 GiB in one process, it does not.

No local diskh1.16xlarge comes with 8 × 2,000 GB HDD attached to the machine. Spot nodes use network storage only, so that disk doesn't come with it. If you were using it as fast scratch space, you'd move to a persistent volume or object storage, which are slower to read.
Pricing by region
1 hr
RegionAWS on-demandAWS Spot1-yr Reserved3-yr ReservedRackspace SpotYou save
US East, N. Virginia$3.744$1.022$2.545$1.809$0.164
$3.580 savings
US Central, Chicagono AWS region$0.164
US Central, Dallasno AWS region$0.204
Hong Kong$0.044
Sydney, Australia$0.644
London, UK$0.884
US West, San Jose$0.604
US Central, Dallas 2no AWS region$0.004
US East, N. Virginia 2$3.744$1.022$2.545$1.809$0.604
$3.140 savings
When to use it
Good for
  • ●Distributed file systems and search indexes
  • ●Transactional databases with heavy random I/O
  • ●Streaming ingest that spools to local disk
  • ●Workloads that fit inside 256 GiB of RAM
  • ●Jobs that want 8 × 2,000 GB of local SSD scratch space
  • ●Network-heavy services — AWS rates this size at 25 Gigabit
  • ●Anything that shards cleanly across 4 nodes, which is how it maps onto Rackspace Spot
Avoid if
  • ●The working set needs more than 256 GiB of RAM
  • ●GPU or FPGA acceleration is needed
  • ●Workloads that never touch local disk. The instance-store premium is wasted.
  • ●More than 4.00 GiB of RAM per vCPU is needed — that ratio is fixed for the whole family
  • ●The work is single-threaded. Most of these 64 vCPU would sit idle.
Stop overpaying AWS. This compute costs $2,733/mo on AWS vs $120/mo on Rackspace Spot.
  • Spot sells spare capacity at market prices. It is the cheapest compute on the internet.
  • Prices are set by supply and demand. You pay what the market decides.
  • Compute is delivered as fully managed Kubernetes. All infrastructure is taken care of.
  • Egress costs $0.01/GB after the free allowance. AWS charges $0.09/GB.
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