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How is Lightsail monthly data transfer allowance working after deleting and recreating instances?

-1

Hi, I would like to confirm how the monthly data transfer allowance is calculated for Amazon Lightsail.

Suppose that, within the same AWS Region, I create two identical $5 IPv6-only Lightsail instances. Each instance includes 2 TB/month of data transfer allowance, so the two instances should have a combined allowance of 4 TB/month.

If these two instances use a total of 2 TB of data transfer during the month, and I then delete both instances, then later create one new $5 IPv6-only Lightsail instance with the same bundle in the same Region, use another 1 TB of data transfer, and then delete that instance as well:

In this scenario, the total data transfer usage for the month would be 3 TB. Would this 3 TB be counted against the original combined 4 TB monthly allowance from the two instances? In other words, would I be charged any additional data transfer fees?

What I would like to clarify is: after deleting the instances, how are the accumulated monthly data transfer allowance and usage calculated? If I create another instance with the same bundle in the same Region, does it continue to share the aggregated monthly data transfer allowance for that bundle within the Region?

Topics
Cloud Financial ManagementCompute
Tags
Amazon LightsailAWS Billing
Language
English

asked a month ago91 views

1 Answer
0

First, an important point: when you deleted both original instances and created only one new instance, your data transfer allowance for the rest of the month dropped from 4 TB to 2 TB. The 4 TB allowance was tied to having two instances active — with only one instance now, you only have 2 TB of allowance remaining for the month.

Given that, whether you incur overage depends on how your two original instances consumed that 2 TB:

  • If both instances were created and deleted at the same time (usage split equally between them), cumulative usage on your remaining allowance is ~1 TB — the additional 1 TB brings you to 2 TB with no overage.
  • If the two instances had different lifetimes, there's a good chance you'll see overage. One instance may have accumulated more than 1 TB of usage, so the additional 1 TB would push you over the 2 TB limit.
  • If you had created two new instances instead of one, your allowance would have stayed at 4 TB and 3 TB total usage would have been fine.

Hope that helps! For more details on how allowances are aggregated, see the Data transfer in Amazon Lightsail FAQ https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lightsail/latest/userguide/amazon-lightsail-faq-data-transfer-allowance.html

answered a month ago

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reviewed a month ago

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revised a month ago

  • zentic
    a month ago

    If I create five $5 IPv6-only Amazon Lightsail instances at the beginning of the month, run them for only one hour, and then delete all of them, and after that create one new $5 IPv6-only Lightsail instance in the same AWS Region with the same bundle:

    Would the final instance be able to use the aggregated monthly data transfer allowance from the five deleted instances, which would be 10 TB in total? That's quite strange if it's true.

  • AWS-User-2203401
    a month ago

    No. Exactly like the first answer it’s shared and limited.

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