Instances›AWS EC2›i3›i3.4xlarge
Compute
vCPUs16
Memory122 GiB
Mem / vCPU7.63 GiB
ProcessorXeon E5-2686 v4
Clock speed2.3 GHz
Architecturex86_64
Storage
Type2 × 1,900 GB NVMe SSD
Bandwidth3,500 Mbps
Throughput437.5 MB/s
IOPS16,000
Networking
PerformanceUp to 10 Gigabit
Max ENIs8
IPv6Yes
GPUNone
Family sizes
i3.large2 vCPU · 15.25 GiB
i3.xlarge4 vCPU · 30.5 GiB
i3.2xlarge8 vCPU · 61 GiB
i3.4xlarge16 vCPU · 122 GiB
i3.8xlarge32 vCPU · 244 GiB
i3.16xlarge64 vCPU · 488 GiB
i3.metal64 vCPU · 488 GiB
i3.4xlarge

The i3.4xlarge pairs 16 vCPU with 122 GiB of RAM, the 7.63 GiB-per-vCPU ratio that marks a storage-optimized instance. In the name, "i" is I/O, meaning local storage, "3" is the generation and "4xlarge" is the size within the i3 family. It runs on Intel Xeon E5-2686 v4 (Broadwell) at 2.3 GHz, and AWS introduced it in November 2016. AWS has since shipped i4i, i7i and i8g; i4i.4xlarge is the direct replacement at this size, scoring 269,270 CoreMark/s against this instance's 208,832 — roughly 29% more throughput for the same vCPU count. mh.vs1.2xlarge on Rackspace Spot lines up one-for-one: 16 vCPU and 128 GiB, $1.25/hr on AWS in US East (N. Virginia), from $0.021/hr on Rackspace Spot.

Match qualityNo local disk

i3.4xlarge comes with 2 × 1,900 GB NVMe SSD attached to the machine. Rackspace Spot nodes use network storage only, so that disk does not come with it.

If you were using the local disk as fast scratch space — temporary files, a local cache, an index — you will need a persistent volume or object storage instead, and both are slower to read. If it was just extra space you never depended on, nothing changes.

Pricing by region
1 hr
RegionAWS on-demandAWS Spot1-yr Reserved3-yr ReservedRackspace SpotYou save
US East, N. Virginia$1.248$0.512$0.857$0.605$0.021
$1.227 savings
US Central, Chicagono AWS region$0.021
US Central, Dallasno AWS region$0.131
Hong Kong$1.648$1.129$0.800$0.021
$1.627 savings
Sydney, Australia$1.496$0.545$1.025$0.726$0.021
$1.475 savings
London, UK$1.448$0.454$0.991$0.708$0.131
$1.317 savings
US West, San Jose$1.376$0.546$0.941$0.674$0.002
$1.374 savings
US Central, Dallas 2no AWS region$0.242
When to use it
Good for
  • ●Streaming ingest that spools to local disk
  • ●Elasticsearch and OpenSearch data nodes
  • ●NoSQL stores such as Cassandra, ScyllaDB and MongoDB
  • ●Workloads that fit inside 122 GiB of RAM
  • ●Jobs that want 2 × 1,900 GB of local NVMe scratch space
  • ●Network-heavy services — AWS rates this size at Up to 10 Gigabit
Avoid if
  • ●Starting a new deployment. i4i.4xlarge is the newer generation at this size.
  • ●The working set needs more than 122 GiB of RAM
  • ●The work is single-threaded. Most of these 16 vCPU would sit idle.
  • ●GPU or FPGA acceleration is needed
  • ●Workloads that never touch local disk. The instance-store premium is wasted.
  • ●More than 7.63 GiB of RAM per vCPU is needed — that ratio is fixed for the whole family
i3.4xlarge runs $911/mo on AWS on-demand. The equivalent on Rackspace Spot: $15/mo.
  • 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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