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But to make a large instance comparable to a real server you would need to include some data transfer and persistent storage in with the price of the server. Th

But to make a large instance comparable to a real server you would need to include some data transfer and persistent storage in with the price of the server. The EBS page estimates a 100 gig store for a DB would be about $26 a month. If you add to that a gigabyte of data out an hour(at $0.17) you would be up to almost 10 grand for three years of a reserved instance. $10,000 / 36 months is $277 a month, for a server.

moe 17y ago
If you add bandwidth and storage to one side of the equation you'll also have to add it on the other side. Do you get the bandwidth cheaper elsewhere? Perhaps but probably not significantly. Do you get storage with similar flexibility and scalability cheaper elsewhere? Highly unlikely. Oh and housing, power and staff aren't free either. Neither are the premium support contracts with your various suppliers to get same-day replacements for failed hardware. Once you factor everything in you'll realize that EC2 is not nearly as expensive as it may seem at a glance.