I launched both and they appear to be identical. One says ebs
and the other is gp2
.
ami-b270a8cf amzn2-ami-hvm-2017.12.0.20180328.1-x86_64-ebs
ami-f973ab84 amzn2-ami-hvm-2017.12.0.20180328.1-x86_64-gp2
I launched both and they appear to be identical. One says ebs
and the other is gp2
.
ami-b270a8cf amzn2-ami-hvm-2017.12.0.20180328.1-x86_64-ebs
ami-f973ab84 amzn2-ami-hvm-2017.12.0.20180328.1-x86_64-gp2
The difference in that
ami-b270a8cf
ebs
uses magnetic storage for the root volume andami-f973ab84
gp2
uses General Purpose (SSD) storage for the root volume.AWS's lack of documentation explaining the actual difference between the two (if there is I'll gladly edit this answer) is a bit surprising so I'm adding my own take to this
TLDR;
If you're planning on switching to a faster SSD root volume at some point in the future but want to use Magnetic for now it would be better to use the
gp2
version of the AMI and then change the root volume to SSD sometime laterSome more Explanation
ami-f973ab84 amzn2-ami-hvm-2017.12.0.20180328.1-x86_64-gp2
- The recommended root volume type is General Purpose SSD (gp2)ami-b270a8cf amzn2-ami-hvm-2017.12.0.20180328.1-x86_64-ebs
- The recommended root volume type is MagneticHowever this isn't set in stone so you can still interchange between them (I've used the
gp2
version with a Magnetic storage in the past without issues)I couldn't find any official documentation as to the actual difference between the two AMI versions but the
gp2
version most likely has SSD related optimizations added already to the OSSo if you envision switching to SSD at some point in future but want to start with a Magnetic volume it might be better to just use the
gp2
optimized AMI right from the start. It probably has some optimizations not relevant to Magnetic volumes but it might be more future proof in case you want to have a faster root volume later