[bdcravens]

I believe the instance goes away. If you've persisted data to EBS, you can attach the volume to a different instance. Anything outside of EBS is lost. However, if you created an AMI (AWS Machine Image), you can launch a new instance from that. (but it's a snapshot, not a live image, so it'll be only as up to date as it was when saved)

[ncsurfus]

The instance isn’t terminated (gone). It’s either shutdown or rebooted depending on the type of hardware failure.

[bdcravens]

It doesn't get transferred to a different physical instance, right?

[christrotman]

I have never seen it migrated to a different instance type, but it would be running on a different physical server.

[NikolaeVarius]

Why would anyone even care

[bdcravens]

I think many would make assumptions about the state of the instance and their application, which are likely to be wrong.

[ncsurfus]

Some virtualization platforms support live migrations (hyper-v and ESXi), but this isn’t something AWS supports (afaik). Anytime your instance is stopped/started or rebooted then you may end up on a different physical host.