Instances›AWS EC2›m5a›m5a.4xlarge
Compute
vCPUs16
Memory64 GiB
Mem / vCPU4.00 GiB
ProcessorEPYC 7571
Clock speed2.5 GHz
Architecturex86_64
Storage
TypeEBS only
Bandwidth2,880 Mbps
Throughput360 MB/s
IOPS16,000
Networking
PerformanceUp to 10 Gigabit
Max ENIs8
IPv6Yes
GPUNone
Family sizes
m5a.large2 vCPU · 8 GiB
m5a.xlarge4 vCPU · 16 GiB
m5a.2xlarge8 vCPU · 32 GiB
m5a.4xlarge16 vCPU · 64 GiB
m5a.8xlarge32 vCPU · 128 GiB
m5a.12xlarge48 vCPU · 192 GiB
m5a.16xlarge64 vCPU · 256 GiB
m5a.24xlarge96 vCPU · 384 GiB
m5a.4xlarge

m5a.4xlarge is AWS's general-purpose EC2 size at 16 vCPU and 64 GiB. In the name, "m" is the general-purpose line, "5" is the generation, "a" marks AMD processors and "4xlarge" is the size within the m5a family. It runs on AMD EPYC 7571 at 2.5 GHz, and AWS introduced it in November 2018. AWS has since shipped m6a, m7a, m8a and m9g; m6a.4xlarge is the direct replacement at this size, scoring 333,385 CoreMark/s against this instance's 206,825 — roughly 61% more throughput for the same vCPU count. On Rackspace Spot the same shape is gp.vs1.2xlarge — 16 vCPU, 64 GiB, matched on both dimensions, about 94% below the US East (N. Virginia) on-demand rate.

Pricing by region
1 hr
RegionAWS on-demandAWS Spot1-yr Reserved3-yr ReservedRackspace SpotYou save
US East, N. Virginia$0.688$0.288$0.433$0.297$0.041
$0.647 savings
US Central, Chicagono AWS region$0.041
US Central, Dallasno AWS region$0.051
Hong Kong$0.011
Sydney, Australia$0.864$0.402$0.544$0.373$0.161
$0.703 savings
London, UK$0.800$0.323$0.504$0.346$0.221
$0.579 savings
US West, San Jose$0.808$0.293$0.509$0.349$0.151
$0.657 savings
US Central, Dallas 2no AWS region$0.001
US East, N. Virginia 2$0.688$0.288$0.433$0.297$0.151
$0.537 savings
When to use it
Good for
  • ●Development, staging and CI environments
  • ●Small to mid-size relational databases
  • ●Backend services with no single dominant resource
  • ●Workloads that fit inside 64 GiB of RAM
  • ●Parallel work that can occupy 16 vCPU
  • ●Network-heavy services — AWS rates this size at Up to 10 Gigabit
Avoid if
  • ●Starting a new deployment. m6a.4xlarge is the newer generation at this size.
  • ●The working set needs more than 64 GiB of RAM
  • ●Sustained full-core CPU load. A compute-optimized family costs less per unit of work.
  • ●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 16 vCPU would sit idle.
  • ●Local NVMe or instance-store disk is a hard requirement
$502/mo on AWS on-demand against $30/mo on Rackspace Spot for the equivalent — market-priced, not list-priced.
  • 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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