What are bare metal servers?
Bare metal servers provide users with sole access to the entire server. Unlike a virtual server with multiple tenants, the pure bare metal server is single tenant and offered without a hypervisor, thereby eliminating the “noisy neighbor” effect and any performance “tax” from the hypervisor. Bare metal servers can be acquired in a preconfigured form or custom-configured to exact specifications.
Bare metal server features
Single tenant
A bare metal server dedicated to customers for complete control, flexibility, and security.
Computing power
From single processor 4-core architectures to quad-processor 12-core architectures and up to 3 TB RAM.
Local storage range
Up to 36 drives per server, with 800 GB to 1.2 TB SSDs.
Choose the best server for you
Bare metal server benefits
Customizable RAM, SSD and more
Choose a processor that best meets your performance needs. Upgrade from the base configuration to fine-tune the hardware for your workload.
On-demand accessibility
Provision servers in IBM Cloud™ data centers around the world in two to four hours. If you need to be online in minutes or need only limited resources, select an hourly bare metal server.
Bare metal server versions
Monthly bare metal
Order a monthly bare metal server built to specification, and it will be ready for you in two to four hours — with 500 GB per month outbound bandwidth included.
Hourly bare metal
Order an hourly bare metal server, and it will be ready for you in 20 – 30 minutes. Public outbound bandwidth is charged per gigabyte.
Reserved bare metal
Reserve up to 20 bare metal servers in the data center of your choice and claim them at any time. Requires a 1-year or 3-year contract. Ideal for sustained workloads.
See how IBM Cloud outperforms the competition
IBM versus AWS
AWS only offers expensive, high-performance bare metal options in six rigidly defined configurations. IBM Cloud offers hundreds of highly configurable options.
IBM versus Google Cloud
Google Cloud Platform does not offer any bare metal servers; only virtual servers. IBM Cloud offers bare metal and virtual servers that can communicate with each other.
IBM versus Alibaba
Alibaba Cloud offers bare metal instances that are actually a different type of virtual server with some similarities to bare metal. IBM Cloud offers bare metal with direct access to an entire server.
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*20 TB bandwidth included in US, Canada and EU data centers; 5 TB bandwidth included in all other data centers. New prices and offers may not be combined with any other current or future discounts.