Instances›AWS EC2›m6a›m6a.xlarge
Compute
vCPUs4
Memory16 GiB
Mem / vCPU4.00 GiB
ProcessorEPYC 7R13 Processor
Clock speed3.6 GHz
Architecturex86_64
Storage
TypeEBS only
Bandwidth10,000 Mbps
Throughput1250 MB/s
IOPS40,000
Networking
PerformanceUp to 12.5 Gigabit
Max ENIs4
IPv6Yes
GPUNone
Family sizes
m6a.large2 vCPU · 8 GiB
m6a.xlarge4 vCPU · 16 GiB
m6a.2xlarge8 vCPU · 32 GiB
m6a.4xlarge16 vCPU · 64 GiB
m6a.8xlarge32 vCPU · 128 GiB
m6a.12xlarge48 vCPU · 192 GiB
m6a.16xlarge64 vCPU · 256 GiB
m6a.24xlarge96 vCPU · 384 GiB
m6a.32xlarge128 vCPU · 512 GiB
m6a.48xlarge192 vCPU · 768 GiB
m6a.metal192 vCPU · 768 GiB
m6a.xlarge

m6a.xlarge is AWS's general-purpose EC2 size at 4 vCPU and 16 GiB. In the name, "m" is the general-purpose line, "6" is the generation, "a" marks AMD processors and "xlarge" is the size within the m6a family. It runs on AMD EPYC 7R13 Processor at 3.6 GHz, and AWS introduced it in November 2021. AWS has since shipped m7a, m8a and m9g; m7a.xlarge is the direct replacement at this size, scoring 131,219 CoreMark/s against this instance's 80,527 — roughly 63% more throughput for the same vCPU count. On Rackspace Spot the same shape is gp.vs2.large — 4 vCPU, 16 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$0.173$0.074$0.114$0.078$0.011
$0.162 savings
US Central, Chicagono AWS region$0.011
US Central, Dallasno AWS region$0.021
Hong Kong$0.011
Sydney, Australia$0.216$0.101$0.143$0.098$0.011
$0.205 savings
London, UK$0.200$0.080$0.132$0.091$0.026
$0.174 savings
US West, San Jose$0.202$0.090$0.133$0.092$0.041
$0.161 savings
US Central, Dallas 2no AWS region$0.041
US East, N. Virginia 2$0.173$0.074$0.114$0.078$0.041
$0.132 savings
When to use it
Good for
  • ●Web and application servers with mixed CPU and memory demand
  • ●Microservices and container fleets
  • ●Development, staging and CI environments
  • ●Workloads that fit inside 16 GiB of RAM
  • ●Small, steady services that do not need more than 4 vCPU
  • ●Network-heavy services — AWS rates this size at Up to 12.5 Gigabit
Avoid if
  • ●Starting a new deployment. m7a.xlarge is the newer generation at this size.
  • ●The working set needs more than 16 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
  • ●Local NVMe or instance-store disk is a hard requirement
  • ●GPU or FPGA acceleration is needed
$126/mo on AWS on-demand against $8/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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