EC2 Instances with 6, 9, and 12 TB of Memory

This was discussed a couple days ago in a different thread [1], when 4TB was the EC2 limit.

$400k for the current-gen (224 cores) or, as a sibling comment [2] notes, $250k for the previous CPU generation (which can use twice as many DIMMs of half the density and only 192 cores of that).

> obviously, there's operational costs to consider as well

We can estimate an upper bound on this, given that the current-gen system has N+2 5x1600W 96% efficient PSUs, so 5kW max. If you're paying a colo $.50/kWh, that's another $66k over 3 years worst case.

Realistically, though, CPUs with a max TDP of 1640W, DIMMs (generously) 700W, leaves plenty of room for fans, SSDs and other overhead before getting to 3kW or $40k, and that's still assuming running full-bore the whole time.

There are obviously also ancillary costs to AWS, such as data transfer and EBS.

If you're already running your own hardware, it sure does look more attractive to pay $400k now and $40k over 3 years than to pay AWS $800k All Up Front (now). If not, perhaps it's more attractive to hand-wave away that $360k as saving the "hassle" of hiring someone who knows how to run equipment in a datacenter.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18041486

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18089267

[1] https://www.thinkmate.com/system/superserver-7088b-tr4ft

I think they want the phone call in case you want 10 of them.

Sadly, it just used 6TB as a fixed cutoff, so keeping it up-to-date would be a manual task.

Today, only a few years later, that number is 24TB. (Even more sadly, that's for the last generation of Intel CPU, whereas the current 8S generation tops out at 12TB and isn't even scheduled to have models that would get to 24TB until next year).

Maybe their data was in memory, and the machine powered off.

Memory is absurdly expensive right now, and I'd be shocked if 12TB of it cost any less than another $100,000.

You have to sign a multi-year reservation, and with a cost of $267,512.88 per year (as calculated from another comment in the thread), I assume their profit margins for the first year are nearly non-existent. However, over the course of the remaining two years of your reservation, they're making a great deal of money on each reservation.

So yea, I imagine someone could build something like this, but such an individual would need to have very deep pockets.

Anyone paying more than a negligible amount (per server) for any of these is needlessly over-paying. For a server this expensive, it had better be way below 1%. (Tech support is arguable, but it costs a pretty penny from AWS, too).

> RAM 64GB: $866.23 x 192 = $166,316.16

These CPUs can't support 192 DIMMs, only 96, so they're limited to the much more expensive 128GB modules. That means you're looking at closer to $250k for the RAM alone.