Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#11

Post by tosh » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

> EC2 M1 Mac instances are now available in preview in US East (N. Virginia) and US West (Oregon), with other AWS Regions coming at launch.

Pricing metrics are similar to the previous generation of EC2 Mac instances. You are charged per hour of reservation of the dedicated host, not for the time the instance is running, and there is a minimum charge of 24 hours for reserving a dedicated host.

In the two preview Regions, the on-demand price is $0.6498 per hour. You can save up to 42 percent over the on-demand price with Savings Plans. Check our Dedicated Host on-demand pricing page, as well as the Savings Plans page to learn the details.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#12

Post by willis936 » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:04 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #2

The 24 hour minimum pricing model for these really sucks. My understanding is that this is a condition of Apple's license to Amazon to run macOS on these machines, and I can't work out why they'd do it.

It probably helps selling a false narrative to shareholders. "Look at how many hours our hardware was rented for!" with no regard for how many hours were actually spent doing work.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#13

Post by mcraiha » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #2

The 24 hour minimum pricing model for these really sucks. My understanding is that this is a condition of Apple's license to Amazon to run macOS on these machines, and I can't work out why they'd do it.

I do not understand why Apple hates developers. There are many developers that need Mac machines for CI/CD, but Apple doesn't provide any reasonable solution.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#14

Post by bazhova » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

SavantIdiot wrote: post #3

Naive question: are these literally closets full of Macs? Or giant m1 MP servers?

There was a YT video about a year ago when they first released the EC2 mac instances, and they showed a clip of someone unloading a truck full of mac minis on a forklift. It is really just a bunch of mac minis in a sled. Nothing special going on here.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#15

Post by detaro » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #2

The 24 hour minimum pricing model for these really sucks. My understanding is that this is a condition of Apple's license to Amazon to run macOS on these machines, and I can't work out why they'd do it.

Because they want you to buy your own macs.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#16

Post by neilalexander » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #2

The 24 hour minimum pricing model for these really sucks. My understanding is that this is a condition of Apple's license to Amazon to run macOS on these machines, and I can't work out why they'd do it.

They aren't just firing up a virtual machine on over-provisioned hardware, they're dedicating an entire bare metal machine to you. It is in their interests to make that worthwhile commercially.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#17

Post by MBCook » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

mcraiha wrote: post #13

nicoburns wrote: post #2

The 24 hour minimum pricing model for these really sucks. My understanding is that this is a condition of Apple's license to Amazon to run macOS on these machines, and I can't work out why they'd do it.

I do not understand why Apple hates developers. There are many developers that need Mac machines for CI/CD, but Apple doesn't provide any reasonable solution.

That’s what XCode Cloud (now in beta for some users) is designed for.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#18

Post by detaro » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #10

nicoburns wrote: post #2

The 24 hour minimum pricing model for these really sucks. My understanding is that this is a condition of Apple's license to Amazon to run macOS on these machines, and I can't work out why they'd do it.

My guess is that its market research shows that for a profitable number of people, the 24-hour requirement isn't a big deal. It's not like Amazon doesn't have the ability or experience to research business decisions before they're made.

It's an Apple requirement (it applies to all rent-a-mac type services), I doubt Amazon would mind splitting it shorter (like they do with everything else) if they could.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#19

Post by johnthuss » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

This is great, but since x86 Macs were already available this is mostly just a price reduction. But it's great to have these available at Amazon.

Re: Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances

#20

Post by dougmwne » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

It’s an interesting look at AWS pricing since the cost of the M1 Mac Mini ($699) and it’s power consumption (avg 26 watts) are known. Based on hardware costs (significant) and power costs (insignificant) you’re looking at a hardware ROI at about 6 months from the $.65 per hour price. AWS has an estimated 60% gross profit margin, so from there it’s probably possible to estimate some other interesting things about their costs, utilization rate and depreciation schedule.

Edit: Sorry, my napkin math assumed a unstated utilization rate of 40 hours per week, but that’s not a great assumption due to the 24 hour minimum. Still, some proportion of machines will be idle, though 75% idle seems like a bad guess.