x2iedn.2xlarge is AWS's memory-optimized EC2 size at 8 vCPU and 256 GiB. In the name, "x" is the extra-memory line, "2" is the generation, "iedn" marks Intel processors, extended capacity, local NVMe storage and enhanced networking and "2xlarge" is the size within the x2iedn family. It runs on Intel Xeon Scalable (Icelake) at 3.5 GHz, and AWS introduced it in March 2022. AWS has since shipped x8i; x8i.2xlarge is the direct replacement at this size, scoring 191,632 CoreMark/s against this instance's 137,628 — roughly 39% more throughput for the same vCPU count. The closest Spot shape is mh.vs1.2xlarge at 16 vCPU, so this instance maps to 2 of them — 32 vCPU and 256 GiB across the fleet, $1.67/hr on AWS in US East (N. Virginia), from $0.042/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.
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x2iedn.2xlarge gives you 8 vCPU and 256 GiB in a single machine. The largest comparable Spot node, mh.vs1.2xlarge, is 16 vCPU and 128 GiB, so the equivalent here is 2 nodes rather than one.
Spot runs as managed Kubernetes, so a 2-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 8 cores and 256 GiB in one process, it does not.
No local diskx2iedn.2xlarge comes with 1 × 237 GB NVMe SSD 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.
