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User Guide for Linux Instances

AWS Documentation » Amazon EC2 » User Guide for Linux Instances » Storage » Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) » Amazon EBS–Optimized Instances

Amazon EBS–Optimized Instances

An Amazon EBS–optimized instance uses an optimized configuration stack and provides additional, dedicated capacity for Amazon EBS I/O. This optimization provides the best performance for your EBS volumes by minimizing contention between Amazon EBS I/O and other traffic from your instance.

EBS–optimized instances deliver dedicated bandwidth to Amazon EBS, with options between 425 Mbps and 14,000 Mbps, depending on the instance type you use. When attached to an EBS–optimized instance, General Purpose SSD (gp2) volumes are designed to deliver within 10% of their baseline and burst performance 99% of the time in a given year, and Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1) volumes are designed to deliver within 10% of their provisioned performance 99.9% of the time in a given year. Both Throughput Optimized HDD (st1) and Cold HDD (sc1) guarantee performance consistency of 90% of burst throughput 99% of the time in a given year. Non-compliant periods are approximately uniformly distributed, targeting 99% of expected total throughput each hour. For more information, see Amazon EBS Volume Types.

Contents

Instance Types That Support EBS Optimization

The following table shows which instance types support EBS optimization, the dedicated bandwidth to Amazon EBS, the maximum number of IOPS the instance can support if you are using a 16 KiB I/O size, and the typical maximum aggregate throughput that can be achieved on that connection in MiB/s with a streaming read workload and 128 KiB I/O size. Choose an EBS–optimized instance that provides more dedicated Amazon EBS throughput than your application needs; otherwise, the connection between Amazon EBS and Amazon EC2 can become a performance bottleneck.

The current generation instance types are EBS–optimized by default. For those instances, there is no need to enable EBS optimization and no effect if you disable EBS optimization. For instances that are not EBS–optimized by default, you can enable EBS optimization when you launch the instances, or enable EBS optimization after the instances are running. Instances must have EBS optimization enabled to achieve the level of performance described in the table below.

When you enable EBS optimization for an instance that is not EBS-optimized by default, you pay an additional low, hourly fee for the dedicated capacity. For pricing information, see EBS-optimized Instances on the Amazon EC2 Pricing page for On-Demand instances.

The i2.8xlarge, c3.8xlarge, and r3.8xlarge instances do not have dedicated EBS bandwidth and therefore do not offer EBS optimization. On these instances, network traffic and Amazon EBS traffic share the same 10-gigabit network interface.

Instance type EBS-optimized by default Maximum bandwidth (Mbps) Maximum throughput (MB/s, 128 KB I/O) Maximum IOPS (16 KB I/O)
c1.xlarge 1,000 125 8,000
c3.xlarge 500 62.5 4,000
c3.2xlarge 1,000 125 8,000
c3.4xlarge 2,000 250 16,000
c4.large Yes 500 62.5 4,000
c4.xlarge Yes 750 93.75 6,000
c4.2xlarge Yes 1,000 125 8,000
c4.4xlarge Yes 2,000 250 16,000
c4.8xlarge Yes 4,000 500 32,000
c5.large * Yes 2,250 281.25 16,000
c5.xlarge * Yes 2,250 281.25 16,000
c5.2xlarge * Yes 2,250 281.25 16,000
c5.4xlarge Yes 2,250 281.25 16,000
c5.9xlarge Yes 4,500 562.5 32,000
c5.18xlarge Yes 9,000 1,125 64,000
d2.xlarge Yes 750 93.75 6,000
d2.2xlarge Yes 1,000 125 8,000
d2.4xlarge Yes 2,000 250 16,000
d2.8xlarge Yes 4,000 500 32,000
f1.2xlarge Yes 1,700 212.5 12,000
f1.16xlarge Yes 14,000 1,750 75,000
g2.2xlarge 1,000 125 8,000
g3.4xlarge Yes 3,500 437.5 20,000
g3.8xlarge Yes 7,000 875 40,000
g3.16xlarge Yes 14,000 1,750 80,000
h1.2xlarge Yes 1,750 218.75 12,000
h1.4xlarge Yes 3,500 437.5 20,000
h1.8xlarge Yes 7,000 875 40,000
h1.16xlarge Yes 14,000 1,750 80,000
i2.xlarge 500 62.5 4,000
i2.2xlarge 1,000 125 8,000
i2.4xlarge 2,000 250 16,000
i3.large Yes 425 53.13 3000
i3.xlarge Yes 850 106.25 6000
i3.2xlarge Yes 1,700 212.5 12,000
i3.4xlarge Yes 3,500 437.5 16,000
i3.8xlarge Yes 7,000 875 32,500
i3.16xlarge Yes 14,000 1,750 65,000
m1.large 500 62.5 4,000
m1.xlarge 1,000 125 8,000
m2.2xlarge 500 62.5 4,000
m2.4xlarge 1,000 125 8,000
m3.xlarge 500 62.5 4,000
m3.2xlarge 1,000 125 8,000
m4.large Yes 450 56.25 3,600
m4.xlarge Yes 750 93.75 6,000
m4.2xlarge Yes 1,000 125 8,000
m4.4xlarge Yes 2,000 250 16,000
m4.10xlarge Yes 4,000 500 32,000
m4.16xlarge Yes 10,000 1,250 65,000
m5.large* Yes 2,120 265 16,000
m5.xlarge* Yes 2,120 265 16,000
m5.2xlarge* Yes 2,120 265 16,000
m5.4xlarge Yes 2,120 265 16,000
m5.12xlarge Yes 5,000 625 32,500
m5.24xlarge Yes 10,000 1,250 65,000
p2.xlarge Yes 750 93.75 6,000
p2.8xlarge Yes 5,000 625 32,500
p2.16xlarge Yes 10,000 1,250 65,000
p3.2xlarge Yes 1,750 218 10,000
p3.8xlarge Yes 7,000 875 40,000
p3.16xlarge Yes 14,000 1,750 80,000
r3.xlarge 500 62.5 4,000
r3.2xlarge 1,000 125 8,000
r3.4xlarge 2,000 250 16,000
r4.large Yes 425 53.13 3,000
r4.xlarge Yes 850 106.25 6,000
r4.2xlarge Yes 1,700 212.5 12,000
r4.4xlarge Yes 3,500 437.5 18,750
r4.8xlarge Yes 7,000 875 37,500
r4.16xlarge Yes 14,000 1,750 75,000
x1.16xlarge Yes 7,000 875 40,000
x1.32xlarge Yes 14,000 1,750 80,000
x1e.xlarge Yes 500 62.5 3,700
x1e.2xlarge Yes 1,000 125 7,400
x1e.4xlarge Yes 1,750 218.75 10,000
x1e.8xlarge Yes 3,500 437.5 20,000
x1e.16xlarge Yes 7,000 875 40,000
x1e.32xlarge Yes 14,000 1,750 80,000

* These instance types can support maximum performance for 30 minutes at least once every 24 hours. For example, c5.large instances can deliver 281 MB/s for 30 minutes at least once every 24 hours. If you have a workload that requires sustained maximum performance for longer than 30 minutes, select an instance type according to baseline performance as shown in the table below.

The EBSIOBalance% and EBSByteBalance% metrics can help you determine if you have rightsized your instances. You can view these metrics in the CloudWatch console and set an alarm that will be triggered based on your thresholds. These metrics are expressed as a percentage. Instances with a consistently low balance percentage are candidates for upsizing. Instances where the balance percentage never drops below 100% are candidates for downsizing. For more information, see Monitoring Your Instances Using CloudWatch.

Instance type Baseline bandwidth (Mbps) Baseline throughput (MB/s, 128 KB I/O) Baseline IOPS (16 KB I/O)
c5.large 525 66 4,000
c5.xlarge 800 100 6,000
c5.2xlarge 1,125 141 8,000
m5.large 480 60 3,600
m5.xlarge 800 100 6,000
m5.2xlarge 1,166 146 8,333

Enabling Amazon EBS Optimization at Launch

You can enable optimization for an instance by setting its Amazon EBS–optimized attribute.

To enable Amazon EBS optimization when launching an instance using the console

  1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

  2. Choose Launch Instance.

  3. In Step 1: Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI), select an AMI.

  4. In Step 2: Choose an Instance Type, select an instance type that is listed as supporting Amazon EBS optimization.

  5. In Step 3: Configure Instance Details, complete the fields that you need and choose Launch as EBS-optimized instance. If the instance type that you selected in the previous step doesn't support Amazon EBS optimization, this option is not present. If the instance type that you selected is Amazon EBS–optimized by default, this option is selected and you can't deselect it.

  6. Follow the directions to complete the wizard and launch your instance.

To enable EBS optimization when launching an instance using the command line

You can use one of the following options with the corresponding command. For more information about these command line interfaces, see Accessing Amazon EC2.

Modifying Amazon EBS Optimization for a Running Instance

You can enable or disable optimization for a running instance by modifying its Amazon EBS–optimized instance attribute.

To enable EBS optimization for a running instance using the console

  1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

  2. In the navigation pane, click Instances, and select the instance.

  3. Click Actions, select Instance State, and then click Stop.

    Warning

    When you stop an instance, the data on any instance store volumes is erased. Therefore, if you have any data on instance store volumes that you want to keep, be sure to back it up to persistent storage.

  4. In the confirmation dialog box, click Yes, Stop. It can take a few minutes for the instance to stop.

  5. With the instance still selected, click Actions, select Instance Settings, and then click Change Instance Type.

  6. In the Change Instance Type dialog box, do one of the following:

    • If the instance type of your instance is Amazon EBS–optimized by default, EBS-optimized is selected and you can't change it. You can choose Cancel, because Amazon EBS optimization is already enabled for the instance.

    • If the instance type of your instance supports Amazon EBS optimization, choose EBS-optimized, Apply.

    • If the instance type of your instance does not support Amazon EBS optimization, you can't choose EBS-optimized. You can select an instance type from Instance Type that supports Amazon EBS optimization, and then choose EBS-optimized, Apply.

  7. Choose Actions, Instance State, Start.

To enable EBS optimization for a running instance using the command line

You can use one of the following options with the corresponding command. For more information about these command line interfaces, see Accessing Amazon EC2.