Equinix Metal Servers
Deploying servers at Equinix Metal™ is very similar to working with compute instances at AWS, GCP, Digital Ocean and others. However, since Equinix Metal is 100% focused on physical bare metal servers, there are some differences. This is especially true around workload portability, networking setup, and optimization.
Server Naming Convention
Equinix Metal servers have a name that follows a formula to help you understand its purpose and broad specifications: class + generation + size + architecture (optional). By piecing these features together, servers get names such as c3.medium.x86, indicating a medium sized, compute-class server, in its 3rd generation, with an x86 processor.
Classes
Classes are groupings derived from common use cases. Equinix Metal organizes servers into the following classes:
- Compute (c) - Compute focused, with a modest RAM footprint.
- Memory (m) - Memory heavy, with a generous RAM to core ratio.
- Network (n) - Focused on network use cases, such as ingress or load balancing.
- Storage (s) - Scale out boxes for storage scenarios.
- GPU (g) - GPU-focused with generous RAM.
- Tiny (t) - Smaller servers, aimed at development or test environments, controller nodes, etc.
- Accelerator (x) - FPGA and other specialty accelerator focused servers.
Generations
Generations are updated when Equinix Metal significantly upgrades or changes server components. Usually a new generation is released around a major processor refresh, but often it also relates to the underlying hardware configuration or chassis. A 2nd generation system is not necessarily outdated, it is just the second iteration of a particular configuration.
Sizes
The server size is a label for the total amount of resources across CPU, memory, and disk. Generally, the larger the server size the more resources it has and the more expensive it is. Equinix Metal server sizes currently include small, medium, large, and xlarge.
Architecture
The architecture is the server's processor. x86 indicates the server has a x86 processor and arm is used for our ARM processor servers.
Servers in the API
Information about Equinix Metal servers in the API can be found in the plans and devices endpoints.
Plans
The plans API endpoints generally return information about what types of servers your organization, project, and user account can provision.
Sending a GET request to the /plans endpoint will return a list of servers that your user account is able to provision with lots of information about each, including name, a description, and which data centers the servers are available in.
curl -X GET -H 'X-Auth-Token: <API_TOKEN>' https://api.equinix.com/metal/v1/plans
Sending a GET request to the /projects/{id}/plans endpoint, where the id is the Project ID, will return a list of servers that are available to that project.
curl -X GET -H 'X-Auth-Token: <API_TOKEN>' https://api.equinix.com/metal/v1/projects/{id}/plans
Ans sending a GET request to the /organizations/{id}/plans endpoint, where the id is the Organization ID, will return a list servers that available to your organization.
curl -X GET -H 'X-Auth-Token: <API_TOKEN>' https://api.equinix.com/metal/v1/organizations/{id}/plans
Devices
The devices API endpoints are the endpoints that provision and manage servers.
For example, to retrieve information about all the servers that you have provisioned in a project, send a GET request to the /projects/{id}/devices endpoint.
curl -X GET -H 'X-Auth-Token: <API_TOKEN>' https://api.equinix.com/metal/v1/projects/{id}/devices
You can provision servers with a POST to the /projects/{id}/devices endpoint. And a more in-depth explanation of on-demand server provisioning is on the On-Demand Servers page.
There are many more features that the Equinix Metal API offers for server management and configuration, please see the API reference.
Sever Specs
These servers are available in all Equinix data centers where Equinix Metal is supported. A list of the current locations is kept up to date on the Equinix Metal Locations page.
c3.small.x86
| Specs | |
|---|---|
| Rate | $0.50 / hour |
| CPU | 1 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) E-2278G CPU @ 3.40GHz |
| Boot | 2 x 480 GB SSD |
| Memory | 32 GB RAM |
| Network | 2 x 10 Gbps |
c3.medium.x86
| Specs | |
|---|---|
| Rate | $1.10 / hour |
| CPU | 1 x AMD EPYC 7402P 24-Core Processor @ 2.8GHz |
| Boot | 2 x 240 GB SSD |
| Storage | 2 x 480 GB SSD |
| Memory | 64 GB RAM |
| Network | 2 x 10 Gbps |
m3.large.x86
| Specs | |
|---|---|
| Rate | $2.00 / hour |
| CPU | 1 x AMD EPYC 7502P 32-Core Processor @ 2.5Ghz |
| Boot | 2 x 240 GB SSD |
| Storage | 2 x 3.8 TB NVME |
| Memory | 256 GB RAM |
| Network | 2 x 25 Gbps |
s3.xlarge.x86
| Specs | |
|---|---|
| Rate | $1.85 / hour |
| CPU | 2 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) Silver 4214 CPU @ 2.20GHz |
| Boot | 2 x 960GB SSD |
| Storage | 2 x 240 GB NVME, 12 x 8 TB HDD |
| Memory | 192 GB RAM |
| Network | 2 x 10 Gbps |
n2.xlarge.x86
| Specs | |
|---|---|
| Rate | $2.25 / hour |
| CPU | 2 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 5120 CPU @ 2.20GHz |
| Boot | 2 x 120 GB SSD |
| Storage | 1 x 3.8 TB NVME |
| Memory | 384 GB RAM |
| Network | 4 x 10 Gbps |
ARM Servers
Equinix Metal offers ARM servers, but they are not available to new accounts and organizations by default. They are also not available at all data center locations. If you are interested in provisioning ARM servers and don't currently see them as provisioning options, please contact support.
c2.large.arm
| Specs | |
|---|---|
| Rate | $1.00 / hour |
| CPU | 1 x Ampere eMAG 8180 32-core @ 3.0Ghz |
| Boot | 1 x 480 GB SSD |
| Memory | 128 GB RAM |
| Network | 2 x 10 Gbps |
c1.large.arm
| Specs | |
|---|---|
| Rate | $0.50 / hour |
| CPU | 2 x Cavium ThunderX CN8890 @ 2GHz |
| Boot | 1 x 340 GB SSD |
| Memory | 128 GB RAM |
| Network | 2 x 10 Gbps |
Legacy Servers
Equinix Metal maintains a number of severs that pre-date its acquisition by Equinix. While existing inventory is being maintained, it is not growing, and is not available to all accounts and organizations. If you have questions about legacy server deployments, please contact support.
c2.medium.x86
| Specs | |
|---|---|
| Rate | $1.00 / hour |
| CPU | 1 x AMD EPYC 7401P 24-Core Processor @ 2.0GHz |
| Boot | 2 x 120 GB SSD |
| Storage | 2 x 480 GB SSD |
| Memory | 64 GB RAM |
| Network | 2 x 10 Gbps |
g2.large.x86
| Specs | |
|---|---|
| Rate | $5.00 / hour |
| CPU | 2 x Intel Xeon Gold 6126 |
| Boot | 1 x 150 GB SSD |
| Storage | 2 x 480 GB SSD |
| Memory | 192 GB RAM |
| Network | 2 x 10 Gbps |
m2.xlarge.x86
| Specs | |
|---|---|
| Rate | $2.00 / hour |
| CPU | 2 x Intel Scalable Gold 5120 28-Core Processor @ 2.2GHz |
| Boot | 2 x 120 GB SSD |
| Storage | 1 x 3.8 TB NVME |
| Memory | 384 GB RAM |
| Network | 2 x 10 Gbp |
n2.xlarge.x86
| Specs | |
|---|---|
| Rate | $2.25 / hour |
| CPU | 2 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 5120 CPU @ 2.20GHz |
| Boot | 2 x 120 GB SSD |
| Storage | 1 x 3.8 TB NVME |
| Memory | 384 GB RAM |
| Network | 4 x 10 Gbps |
x2.xlarge.x86
| Specs | |
|---|---|
| Rate | $2.50 / hour |
| CPU | 2 x Intel Scalable Gold 5120 28-Core Processor @ 2.2GHz |
| Boot | 2 x 120 GB SSD |
| Storage | 1 x 3.8 TB NVME |
| Memory | 384 GB RAM |
| Network | 2 x 10 Gbps |
x1.small.x86
| Specs | |
|---|---|
| Rate | $0.40 / hour |
| CPU | 1 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1578L v5 @ 2.00GHz |
| Boot | 1 x 240 GB SSD |
| Memory | 32 GB RAM |
| Network | 2 x 10 Gbps |
t1.small.x86
| Specs | |
|---|---|
| Rate | $0.07 / hour |
| CPU | 1 x Intel Atom C2550 @ 2.4Ghz |
| Boot | 1 x 80 GB SSD |
| Memory | 8 GB RAM |
| Network | 2 x 1 Gbps |
c1.small.x86
| Specs | |
|---|---|
| Rate | $0.40 / hour |
| CPU | 1 x Intel E3-1240 v3 |
| Boot | 2 x 120 GB SSD |
| Memory | 32 GB RAM |
| Network | 2 x 1 Gbps |
s1.large.x86
| Specs | |
|---|---|
| Rate | $1.50 / hour |
| CPU | 1 x Intel Xeon D-1537 @ 1.7GHz |
| Boot | 2 x 480 GB SSD |
| Storage | 12 x 2 TB HDD, 1 x 128 GB SATA DOM |
| Memory | 64 GB RAM |
| Network | 2 x 10 Gbps |
m1.xlarge.x86
| Specs | |
|---|---|
| Rate | $1.70 / hour |
| CPU | 2 x Intel Xeon E5-2650 v4 @ 2.2GHz |
| Boot | 6 x 480 GB SSD |
| Memory | 256 GB RAM |
| Network | 2 x 10 Gbps |