Hey there! đź‘‹
Today I want to show you how I purchase a Reserved Instance for my database in AWS RDS. It helps me save money on my server costs for Ghostboard. I will walk you through the exact steps I follow.
đź’ˇ If you prefer video, you can watch my video tutorial version here: https://youtu.be/X8V_snV65bk
Step 1: Go to AWS RDS
- First, log in to your AWS account and go to RDS, the Relational Database Service.
- In the left menu, click on Reserved instances.
- Then click the orange Purchase Reserved DB Instance button.
Step 2: Choose Your Database Engine
- You need to select the database engine you’re using — like MySQL, PostgreSQL, or Aurora. In my case, I use RDS PostgreSQL for Ghostboard.
Step 3: Choose the Instance Type
- Here you select the class of instance, which is the size and type of the server.
- For me, I go with t4g.small, which is a burstable instance using an ARM CPU.
Step 4: Deployment Option
- Now choose your deployment option: Single-AZ or Multi-AZ.
- I use Multi-AZ for higher availability, so Ghostboard can stay online even if one zone has a problem.
Step 5: Reservation Term
- Decide how long you want the reservation for: 1 year or 3 years.
- I usually pick 1 year, and then review if I need a bigger or smaller instance at the end.
Step 6: Payment Option
You have 3 choices here:
- All Upfront – pay everything now, get the biggest discount.
- Partial Upfront – pay a part now, rest over time.
- No Upfront – pay monthly, but smaller discount.
I choose All Upfront, so I don’t pay monthly for the instance.
(Note: You still pay for storage and backups separately.)
⚠️ Important: Even if you delete your database later, you still pay for the full reserved period.
Step 7: Instance Count (Be Careful!)
- If you use Multi-AZ, you only need to select 1 reserved instance. This already includes the failover replica in another zone.
- People often make a mistake here and select more than needed.
- This setting is not about physical servers — it’s about how many databases you want to reserve.
Step 8: Add a Name (Optional)
- You can add a name or tag to identify this reservation.
If you don’t, AWS will assign a default name (something like R-I-20250512...). - Final Step: Confirm & Purchase
- You will see a summary with the total price.
- Double-check everything and click the orange Purchase button.
A few seconds later, your Reserved Instance will appear in the list.
You’ll see the name (or default name) and all the details when you click on it.
And that’s it! 🥳
I hope this was helpful.
Feel free to watch the video version here on YouTube to see it in action https://youtu.be/X8V_snV65bk
Thanks for reading, see you next time! đź‘‹
