About Local SSD disks (original) (raw)

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About Local SSD disks

Linux Windows

For workloads that require temporary storage with high performance and low latency, consider using local solid-state drive (Local SSD) disks when you create your compute instance. Local SSD disks are always-encrypted temporary solid-state storage for Compute Engine. To learn about the other disks available in Compute Engine, seeChoose a disk type.

Local SSD disks are ideal when you need storage for any of the following use cases:

Local SSD disks offer superior I/O operations per second (IOPS), and very low latency compared to the persistent storage provided byGoogle Cloud Hyperdisk andPersistent Disk. This low latency is because Local SSD disks are physically attached to the server that hosts your instance. For this same reason, Local SSD disks canprovide only temporary storage.

Because Local SSD is suitable only for temporary storage, you must store data that isn't temporary or ephemeral in nature on a Hyperdisk or Persistent Disk volume.

To use Local SSD disks with a compute instance,add Local SSD disks when you create the instance. You can't add Local SSD disks to an instance after creating the instance.

Limitations

Local SSD has the following limitations:

Types of Local SSD disks

Local SSD disks come in two types:

Unless Titanium SSD is specifically mentioned, the term "Local SSD" applies to both Local SSD and Titanium SSD when describing features of local SSD disks.

Performance

Local SSD performance depends on several factors, including the number of attached Local SSD disks, the selected disk interface (NVMe orSCSI), and the instance's machine type. The available performance increases as you attach more Local SSD disks to your instance.

Local SSD performance by number of attached disks

The following tables list the maximum IOPS and throughput for NVMe- and SCSI-attached Local SSD disks. The metrics are listed by the total capacity of Local SSD disks attached to the instance.

Titanium SSD performance

The following table lists the performance limits for Titanium SSD disks onC4,C4A,C4D,G4,H4D, andZ3 instances.

Machine type # of attachedTitanium SSD disks Total storage space (GiB) IOPS Throughput (MiB/s)
Read Write Read Write
C4 (with 375 GiB disks)
c4-standard-4-lssd c4-highmem-4-lssd 1 375 150,000 75,000 625 330
c4-standard-8-lssd c4-highmem-8-lssd 1 375 150,000 75,000 625 330
c4-standard-16-lssd c4-highmem-16-lssd 2 750 300,000 150,000 1,250 660
c4-standard-24-lssd c4-highmem-24-lssd 4 1,500 600,000 300,000 2,500 1,320
c4-standard-32-lssd c4-highmem-32-lssd 5 1,875 750,000 375,000 3,125 1,650
c4-standard-48-lssd c4-highmem-48-lssd 8 3,000 1,200,000 600,000 5,000 2,640
c4-standard-96-lssd c4-highmem-96-lssd 16 6,000 2,400,000 1,200,000 10,000 5,280
c4-standard-144-lssd c4-highmem-144-lssd 24 9,000 3,600,000 1,800,000 15,000 7,920
c4-standard-192-lssd c4-highmem-192-lssd 32 12,000 4,800,000 2,400,000 20,000 10,560
c4-standard-288-lssd c4-highmem-288-lssd 48 18,000 7,200,000 3,600,000 30,000 15,840
c4-standard-288-lssd-metal c4-highmem-288-lssd-metal 6 18,000 7,200,000 3,600,000 30,000 15,840
C4A (with 375 GiB disks)
c4a-standard-4-lssd c4a-highmem-4-lssd 1 375 150,000 75,000 650 330
c4a-standard-8-lssd c4a-highmem-8-lssd 2 750 300,000 150,000 1,300 660
c4a-standard-16-lssd c4a-highmem-16-lssd 4 1,500 600,000 300,000 2,600 1,320
c4a-standard-32-lssd c4a-highmem-32-lssd 6 2,250 900,000 450,000 3,900 1,980
c4a-standard-48-lssd c4a-highmem-48-lssd 10 3,750 1,500,000 750,000 6,500 3,300
c4a-standard-64-lssd c4a-highmem-64-lssd 14 5,250 2,100,000 1,050,000 9,100 4,620
c4a-standard-72-lssd c4a-highmem-72-lssd 16 6,000 2,400,000 1,200,000 10,400 5,280
C4D (with 375 GiB disks)
c4d-standard-8-lssd c4d-highmem-8-lssd c4d-standard-16-lssd c4d-highmem-16-lssd 1 375 150,000 75,000 625 330
c4d-standard-32-lssd c4d-highmem-32-lssd 2 750 300,000 150,000 1,250 660
c4d-standard-48-lssd c4d-highmem-48-lssd 4 1,500 600,000 300,000 2,500 1,320
c4d-standard-64-lssd c4d-highmem-64-lssd 6 2,250 900,000 450,000 3,750 1,980
c4d-standard-96-lssd c4d-highmem-96-lssd 8 3,000 1,200,000 600,000 5,000 2,640
c4d-standard-192-lssd c4d-highmem-192-lssd 16 6,000 2,400,000 1,200,000 10,000 5,280
c4d-standard-384-lssd c4d-highmem-384-lssd 32 12,000 4,800,000 2,400,000 20,000 10,560
G4 (with 375 GiB disks)
g4-standard-48 4 1,500 600,000 300,000 2,500 1,320
g4-standard-96 8 3,000 1,200,000 600,000 5,000 2,640
g4-standard-192 16 6,000 2,400,000 1,200,000 10,000 5,280
g4-standard-384 32 12,000 4,800,000 2,400,000 20,000 10,560
H4D (with 375 GiB disks)
h4d-highmem-192-lssd 10 3,750 1,500,000 750,000 6,250 3,300
Z3 (with 3 TiB disks)
z3-highmem-8-highlssd z3-highmem-14-standardlssd 1 3,000 750,000 500,000 3,000 2,500
z3-highmem-16-highlssd z3-highmem-22-standardlssd 2 6,000 1,500,000 1,000,000 6,000 5,000
z3-highmem-22-highlssd z3-highmem-44-standardlssd 3 9,000 2,250,000 1,500,000 9,000 7,500
z3-highmem-32-highlssd 4 12,000 3,000,000 2,000,000 12,000 10,000
z3-highmem-44-highlssd z3-highmem-88-standard 6 18,000 4,500,000 3,000,000 18,000 15,000
z3-highmem-88-highlssd z3-highmem-176-standardlssd 12 36,000 9,000,000 6,000,000 36,000 30,000
Z3 bare metal (with 6 TiB disks)
z3-highmem-192-highlssd-metal 12 72,000 9,000,000 6,000,000 36,000 30,000

NVMe Local SSD performance

The following table lists the performance limits for Local SSD disks that are attached to instances using NVMe.

# of attachedLocal SSD disks Total storage space (GiB) Capacity per disk (GiB) IOPS Throughput (MiB/s)
Read Write Read Write
1 375 375 170,000 90,000 660 350
2 750 375 340,000 180,000 1,320 700
3 1,125 375 510,000 270,000 1,980 1,050
4 1,500 375 680,000 360,000 2,650 1,400
5 1,875 375 680,000 360,000 2,650 1,400
6 2,250 375 680,000 360,000 2,650 1,400
7 2,625 375 680,000 360,000 2,650 1,400
8 3,000 375 680,000 360,000 2,650 1,400
16 6,000 375 1,600,000 800,000 6,240 3,120
24 9,000 375 2,400,000 1,200,000 9,360 4,680
32 12,000 375 3,200,000 1,600,000 12,480 6,240

SCSI Local SSD performance

The following table lists the performance limits for Local SSD disks that are attached to instances using SCSI.

# of combinedLocal SSD disks Storage space (GiB) IOPS Throughput (MiB/s)
Read Write Read Write
1 375 100,000 70,000 390 270
2 750 200,000 140,000 780 550
3 1,125 300,000 210,000 1,170 820
4 1,500 400,000 280,000 1,560 1,090
5 1,875 400,000 280,000 1,560 1,090
6 2,250 400,000 280,000 1,560 1,090
7 2,625 400,000 280,000 1,560 1,090
8 3,000 400,000 280,000 1,560 1,090
16 6,000 900,000 800,000 6,240 3,120
24 9,000 900,000 800,000 9,360 4,680

Configure your instance to maximize performance

To reach the stated performance levels, you must configure your compute instance as follows:

For additional instance and disk configuration settings that can improve Local SSD performance, seeOptimizing Local SSD performance.

For more information about selecting a disk interface, see Choose a disk interface.

Local SSD data persistence

Compute Engine preserves the data on Local SSD disks only in certain scenarios.

Scenarios where Compute Engine persists Local SSD data

Compute Engine preserves the data on Local SSD disks in the following events:

Scenarios where Compute Engine might not persist Local SSD data

Data on Local SSD disks might be lost if ahost error occurs on the instance and Compute Engine can't recover the data on the Local SSD disks attached to the instance within a specified time.

You can control how much time, if any, is spent attempting to recover the data with Local SSD recovery timeout. Recovery is attempted only if your instance is configured to automatically restart (automaticRestart) after the repair operation completes.

If Compute Engine can recover the data on the Local SSD disks, the instance restarts with all disks attached, and the recovered disk states will be consistent with the disk states prior to the failure.

If Compute Engine can't recover the data on the Local SSD disks before the timeout expires, the instance restarts with blank, unformatted Local SSD disks attached, and the original data is unrecoverable.

Scenarios where Compute Engine doesn't persist Local SSD data

Data on Local SSD disks doesn't persist through the following events:

If Compute Engine can't recover an instance's Local SSD data, the instance restarts with blank Local SSD disks attached, and the original data is unrecoverable.

Machine series support

You can use Local SSD disks with the following machine series.

However, there are constraints around how many Local SSD disks you can attach based on each machine type. For more information, seeChoose a valid number of Local SSD disks.

Local SSD encryption

Compute Engine automatically encrypts your data when it is written to Local SSD disks. You can't usecustomer-supplied encryption keyswith Local SSD disks.

Local SSD data backup

Since you can't back up Local SSD data with disk images, standard snapshots, or disk clones, Google recommends that you always store valuable data on adurable storage option.

If you need to preserve the data on a Local SSD disk, attach a Persistent Disk or Google Cloud Hyperdisk to the instance. After you mount the Persistent Disk or Hyperdisk copy the data from the Local SSD disk to the newly attached disk.

Choose a disk interface

To achieve the highest Local SSD performance, you must attach your disks to the instance with the NVMe interface. Performance is lower if you use the SCSI interface.

The disk interface you choose also depends on the machine type and OS that your instance uses. Some of the available machine types in Compute Engine allow you to choose between NVMe and SCSI interfaces, while others support either only NVMe or only SCSI. Similarly, some of the public OS images provided by Compute Engine might support both NVMe and SCSI, or only one of the two.

Disk interface support by machine type and OS image

The following pages provide more information about available machine types and supported public images, as well as performance details.

Considerations for NVMe for custom images

If your instance uses a custom Linux image, you must use version 4.14.68 or later of the Linux kernel for optimal NVMe performance.

If your instance uses Windows, and your instance was created before May 2022, you must replace your NVMe driver. For more information, seeReplace the NVMe driver on VMs created before May 2022.

Considerations for SCSI for custom images

If you have an existing setup that requires using a SCSI interface, consider using multi-queue SCSI to achieve better performance over the standard SCSI interface.

If you are using a custom image that you imported, seeEnable multi-queue SCSI.

Choose a valid number of Local SSD disks

Some machine types always include a fixed number of Local SSD disks by default, while others allow you to add specific numbers of disks. You can only add Local SSD disks when you create the instance. You can't add Local SSD disks to an instance after you create it.

The size of each individual Local SSD disk varies by machine series, as follows:

Machine types that automatically attach Local SSD disks

The following table lists the machine types that come with Local SSD disks by default. The table also shows the number of these disks that are attached when you create the instance.

Machine type Number of Local SSD disksautomatically attached per instance
C4 using Titanium SSD
Only the -lssd variants of the C4 machine types support local Titanium SSD.
c4-standard-4-lssd c4-highmem-4-lssd 1
c4-standard-8-lssd c4-highmem-8-lssd 1
c4-standard-16-lssd c4-highmem-16-lssd 2
c4-standard-24-lssd c4-highmem-24-lssd 4
c4-standard-32-lssd c4-highmem-32-lssd 5
c4-standard-48-lssd c4-highmem-48-lssd 8
c4-standard-96-lssd c4-highmem-96-lssd 16
c4-standard-144-lssd c4-highmem-144-lssd 24
c4-standard-192-lssd c4-highmem-192-lssd 32
c4-standard-288-lssd c4-highmem-288-lssd 48
c4-standard-288-lssd-metal c4-highmem-288-lssd-metal 6
C4A using Titanium SSD
Only the -lssd variants of the C4A machine types support local Titanium SSD.
c4a-standard-4-lssd c4a-highmem-4-lssd 1
c4a-standard-8-lssd c4a-highmem-8-lssd 2
c4a-standard-16-lssd c4a-highmem-16-lssd 4
c4a-standard-32-lssd c4a-highmem-32-lssd 6
c4a-standard-48-lssd c4a-highmem-48-lssd 10
c4a-standard-64-lssd c4a-highmem-64-lssd 14
c4a-standard-72-lssd c4a-highmem-72-lssd 16
C4D machine types
Only the -lssd variants of the C4D machine types support Local SSD.
c4d-standard-8-lssd c4d-highmem-8-lssd 1
c4d-standard-16-lssd c4d-highmem-16-lssd 1
c4d-standard-32-lssd c4d-highmem-32-lssd 2
c4d-standard-48-lssd c4d-highmem-48-lssd 4
c4d-standard-64-lssd c4d-highmem-64-lssd 6
c4d-standard-96-lssd c4d-highmem-96-lssd 8
c4d-standard-192-lssd c4d-highmem-192-lssd 16
c4d-standard-384-lssd c4d-highmem-384-lssd 32
C3
Only the -lssd variants of the C3 machine types support Local SSD.
c3-standard-4-lssd 1
c3-standard-8-lssd 2
c3-standard-22-lssd 4
c3-standard-44-lssd 8
c3-standard-88-lssd 16
c3-standard-176-lssd 32
C3D
Only the -lssd variants of the C3D machine types support Local SSD.
c3d-standard-8-lssd c3d-highmem-8-lssd 1
c3d-standard-16-lssd c3d-highmem-16-lssd 1
c3d-standard-30-lssd c3d-highmem-30-lssd 2
c3d-standard-60-lssd c3d-highmem-60-lssd 4
c3d-standard-90-lssd c3d-highmem-90-lssd 8
c3d-standard-180-lssd c3d-highmem-180-lssd 16
c3d-standard-360-lssd c3d-highmem-360-lssd 32
H4D using Titanium SSD
h4d-highmem-192-lssd 10
A4X Max
a4x-maxgpu-4g-metal 4
A4X
a4x-highgpu-4g 4
A4
a4-highgpu-8g 32
A3 Ultra
a3-ultragpu-8g 32
A3 Mega
a3-megagpu-8g 16
A3 High
a3-highgpu-1g 2
a3-highgpu-2g 4
a3-highgpu-4g 8
a3-highgpu-8g 16
A3 Edge
a3-edgegpu-8g 16
A2 Ultra
a2-ultragpu-1g 1
a2-ultragpu-2g 2
a2-ultragpu-4g 4
a2-ultragpu-8g 8
Z3 using Titanium SSD
Each disk is 3 TiB in size:
z3-highmem-8-highlssd z3-highmem-14-standardlssd 1
z3-highmem-16-highlssd z3-highmem-22-standardlssd 2
z3-highmem-22-highlssd z3-highmem-44-standardlssd 3
z3-highmem-32-highlssd 4
z3-highmem-44-highlssd z3-highmem-88-standardlssd 6
z3-highmem-88-highlssd z3-highmem-176-standardlssd 12
Each disk is 6 TiB in size:
z3-highmem-192-highlssd-metal 12

Machine types that require you to choose a number of Local SSD disks

The machine types listed in the following table don't attach Local SSD disks to a newly created instance unless you specify how many disks to attach. Because you can add Local SSD disks only during instance creation, use the information in this section to determine how many Local SSD disks to attach when you create an instance.

Machine type Number of Local SSD disksallowed per instance
N1
Machine types with T4 GPUs 1 to 8, 16
All other machine types 1 to 8, 16, or 24
N2
Machine types with 2 to 10 vCPUs, inclusive 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, or 24
Machine types with 12 to 20 vCPUs, inclusive 2, 4, 8, 16, or 24
Machine types with 22 to 40 vCPUs, inclusive 4, 8, 16, or 24
Machine types with 42 to 80 vCPUs, inclusive 8, 16, or 24
Machine types with 82 to 128 vCPUs, inclusive 16 or 24
N2D
Machine types with 2 to 16 vCPUs, inclusive 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, or 24
Machine types with 32 or 48 vCPUs 2, 4, 8, 16, or 24
Machine types with 64 or 80 vCPUs 4, 8, 16, or 24
Machine types with 96 to 224 vCPUs, inclusive 8, 16, or 24
C2
Machine types with 4 or 8 vCPUs 1, 2, 4, or 8
Machine types with 16 vCPUs 2, 4, or 8
Machine types with 30 vCPUs 4 or 8
Machine types with 60 vCPUs 8
C2D
Machine types with 2 to 16 vCPUs, inclusive 1, 2, 4, 8
Machine types with 32 vCPUs 2, 4, 8
Machine types with 56 vCPUs 4, 8
Machine types with 112 vCPUs 8
A2 Standard
a2-highgpu-1g 1, 2, 4, or 8
a2-highgpu-2g 2, 4, or 8
a2-highgpu-4g 4 or 8
a2-highgpu-8g or a2-megagpu-16g 8
G2
g2-standard-4 1
g2-standard-8 1
g2-standard-12 1
g2-standard-16 1
g2-standard-24 2
g2-standard-32 1
g2-standard-48 4
g2-standard-96 8
G4 using Titanium SSD
g4-standard-6 0
g4-standard-12 1
g4-standard-24 2
g4-standard-48 4
g4-standard-96 8
g4-standard-192 16
g4-standard-384 32
M1
m1-ultramem-40 1 to 5
m1-ultramem-80 1 to 8
m1-megamem-96 Not available
m1-ultramem-160 Not available
M3
m3-ultramem-32 4, 8
m3-megamem-64 4, 8
m3-ultramem-64 4, 8
m3-megamem-128 8
m3-ultramem-128 8

Reserve capacity for Local SSD disks

Reservations provide high assurance of capacity for zone-specific resources, including Local SSD disks. You can use reservations to ensure that you have Local SSD disks available when you need to use them for growth or disaster recovery. For the different methods to reserve zone-specific resources in Compute Engine, seeChoose a reservation type.

For most machine series, reservations are also useful when you want to receive committed use discounts (CUDs) for your Local SSD disks.

Pricing

For each Local SSD disk you create, you are billed for the total capacity of the disk for the lifetime of the instance that it is attached to.

For detailed information about Local SSD pricing and available discounts, see Local SSD pricing.

For Titanium SSD pricing, see the pricing for the machine series on theVM instance pricing page. For example, for the pricing for Titanium SSD attached to a Z3 instance, see the Z3 instance pricing.

Local SSD disks and Spot VM instances

If you start a Spot VM or preemptible VM with a Local SSD disk, Compute Engine charges discountedspot pricesfor the Local SSD usage. Local SSD disks that are attached to Spot VMs or preemptible VMs work like normal Local SSD disks, retain the samedata persistence characteristics, and remain attached for the life of the VM.

Compute Engine doesn't charge you for Local SSD disk usage on a Spot VM or preemptible VM if the VM is preempted within a minute after it starts running.

Committed use discounts for Local SSD disks

Resource-based commitments provide deep discounts for Compute Engine resources in return for committing to using the resources in a specific region for at least one year. You typically purchase commitments for resources (vCPUs, memory, GPUs, and Local SSD disks) of a specific machine series. When you use your resources, you receive qualifying resource usage at discounted prices. To learn more about these discounts, seeResource-based committed use discounts.

To purchase a commitment with Local SSD disks for most machine series, you must also reserve the disks and attach the reservations to your commitment. If you specify any local Titanium SSD disks in your commitment for use with the following instances, then you don't need attached reservations for those disks:

For more information about attaching reservations to commitments, seeAttach reservations to resource-based commitments.

Use Local SSD disks with an instance

To use a Local SSD disk with a compute instance, you must complete the following steps:

Device naming on Linux instances

The Linux device names for the disks attached to your instance depend on the interface that you choose when creating the disks. When you use the lsblkoperating system command to view your disk devices, it displays the prefixnvme for disks attached with the NVMe interface, and the prefix sd for disks attached with the SCSI interface.

The ordering of the disk numbers or NVMe controllers is not predictable or consistent across instance restarts. On the first boot, a disk might benvme0n1 (or sda for SCSI). On the second boot, the device name for the same disk might be nvme2n1 or nvme0n3 (or sdc for SCSI).

When accessing attached disks, you should use the symbolic links created in/dev/disk/by-id/ instead. These names persist across reboots. For more information about symlinks, seeSymbolic links for disks attached to an instance.

For more information about device names, seeDevice naming on Linux instances.

Stop or suspend a Compute Engine instance with Local SSD disks

When you stop orsuspend an instance, Compute Engine discards the data of any Local SSD disks attached to the instance by default. When you resume the instance, all Local SSD disks attached to the instance are blank.

Preserve Local SSD data when you stop or suspend an instance

When you stop or suspend a compute instance, you can optionally preserve the data on the Local SSD disks attached to the instance.

When the stop or suspend operation starts, Compute Engine performs a managed migration of the Local SSD disk data to durable storage. When you resume or restart the instance, Compute Engine copies the preserved data to Local SSD disks attached to the instance. After you resume or restart the instance, you might have toremount the Local SSD disk into the file system.

You're billed for the storage space used to preserve the Local SSD data until you restart or resume the instance. The used storage space consumes your project's Persistent disk standard GB quota.

Limitations

To learn how to preserve Local SSD data when you stop or suspend an instance, see Stop an instance with Local SSD disksandSuspend an instance with Local SSD disks, respectively.

Delete Local SSD disks

To remove or delete Local SSD disks, you must delete the compute instance that the disks are attached to. You can't delete Local SSD disks unless you delete the instance.

Before you delete a Compute Engine instancethat has Local SSD disks attached, make sure that you migrate any critical data on the Local SSD disks to a Persistent Disk, Hyperdisk, or to another instance. Otherwise, the data on the Local SSD disks is permanently lost.

What's next

Learn how to Create a compute instance with Local SSD disks.

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Last updated 2026-06-18 UTC.