Performance limits for machine series that support Hyperdisk
Stay organized with collections
Save and categorize content based on your preferences.
This document lists the performance limits for machine types that support
Google Cloud Hyperdisk. For a detailed discussion of how Hyperdisk
performance works, see
About Hyperdisk performance.
In this document, machine types are denoted in this format:
M-*-N, where:
M is the machine series, for example, C3
* represents all memory and CPU configurations, for example,
standard or highcpu
N is the number of vCPUs, CPUs, or the GPU designation,
for example, 22 for an instance with 22 vCPUs, or
8g for an instance with 8 GPUs
This format includes the following machine types, wherever available:
bare metal machine types (*-metal)
machine types that come with attached Local SSD disks (*-lssd,
*-standardlssd, or *-highlssd).
For example, c3-*-176 refers to all C3 machine types with 176 vCPUs, namely
c3-standard-176, c3-highcpu-176, c3-highmem-176, and
c3-standard-176-lssd. For more information, see
Compute Engine terminology.
Determine which limits apply
The performance limit that applies to your scenario depends on the instance's
machine type, and the number and type of Hyperdisk volumes you
attached to the instance.
Choose from the following scenarios to determine which limits to consult.
You're using multiple Hyperdisk types with the same instance
and you want to know the maximum performance for all the disks attached
to the instance.
For example, suppose you have one Hyperdisk Balanced volume and two Hyperdisk Throughput volumes attached
to a c3-standard-22 virtual machine (VM) instance. The applicable performance
limits are listed in the Performance limits by machine type
section of this document.
You attached one or more Hyperdisk volumes of the
same type to an instance and you want to know the maximum performance all the
volumes can reach.
For example, you have 3 Hyperdisk Balanced volumes attached to a c3-standard-22 VM.
The applicable performance limits for the 3 volumes are listed in the
Performance limits by Hyperdisk type
section of this document.
Performance limits by machine type
If you use different Hyperdisk types with a single instance,
the following table lists the maximum performance you can expect. This limit
is shared among all Hyperdisk and, if supported, Persistent Disk
volumes attached to the instance.
To learn more about how these limits work, see
How instance performance limits affect performance.
Performance limits for machine types with steady state performance
Certain machine types offer steady state performance, a minimum performance
level that the instance can sustain. The steady state performance is shared
between all volumes attached to the instance. For more information, see
Steady state performance.
The following table lists the steady state performance limits for the available
machine types. If the steady state and maximum performance limits are the same,
then the machine type can sustain this performance level in most cases.
Instance machine type
Steady state IOPS
Steady state throughput (MiB/s)
Maximum IOPS
Maximum throughput (MiB/s)
A3 (H200)
a3-ultragpu-8g
500,000
10,000
500,000
10,000
A4
a4-highgpu-8g
500,000
10,000
500,000
10,000
A4X
a4x-highgpu-4g
500,000
10,000
500,000
10,000
C4
c4-*-2
6,200
120
50,000
400
c4-*-4
12,500
240
50,000
400
c4-*-8
25,000
480
50,000
800
c4-*-16
50,000
1,000
100,000
1,600
c4-*-24
75,000
1,200
100,000
1,600
c4-*-32
100,000
1,600
100,000
1,600
c4-*-48
160,000
2,400
160,000
2,400
c4-*-96
350,000
5,000
350,000
5,000
c4-*-144
350,000
5,000
350,000
5,000
c4-*-192
500,000
10,000
500,000
10,000
c4-*-288
500,000
10,000
500,000
10,000
C4D
c4d-*-2
2,800
65
22,500
400
c4d-*-4
6,200
120
50,000
400
c4d-*-8
12,500
240
50,000
800
c4d-*-16
25,000
480
75,000
1,200
c4d-*-32
50,000
1,000
75,000
1,600
c4d-*-48
75,000
1,400
75,000
1,600
c4d-*-64
350,000
5,000
350,000
5,000
c4d-*-96
350,000
5,000
350,000
5,000
c4d-*-192
350,000
5,000
350,000
5,000
c4d-*-384
500,000
10,000
500,000
10,000
H4D
h4d-*-192
15,000
240
15,000
240
M4
m4-*-16
50,000
1,000
100,000
1,600
m4-*-28
50,000
1,000
100,000
1,600
m4-*-32
90,000
1,600
120,000
1,800
m4-*-56
160,000
2,400
160,000
2,400
m4-*-64
160,000
2,900
200,000
3,000
m4-*-112
350,000
5,000
350,000
5,000
m4-*-224
500,000
10,000
500,000
10,000
Performance limits by Hyperdisk type
For the performance limits by machine type for each Hyperdisk
type, see the following sections:
This section lists the maximum performance that Hyperdisk Balanced volumes
can achieve for each supported instance. A Hyperdisk Balanced volume's performance
when it's attached to an instance can't exceed the limits for the instance's
machine type.
The performance limits are also shared across all Hyperdisk Balanced volumes
attached to the same instance, regardless of each volume's provisioned performance.
Achieve higher performance with multiple Hyperdisk Balanced volumes
Certain instances can exceed the maximum performance for a single Hyperdisk Balanced volume—
160,000 IOPS or 2,400 MiB per second (MiB/s). An instance can only
achieve these higher limits if you attach multiple Hyperdisk Balanced volumes to the instance.
If an instance's performance limit in the following table exceeds 160,000 IOPS or
2,400 MiB/s, then the instance can only achieve that limit
if you attach multiple Hyperdisk Balanced volumes.
For example, the performance limit for a c4a-*-72 instance using Hyperdisk Balanced
is 240,000 IOPS and 5,000 MiB/s. To achieve this maximum performance
you must attach at least two Hyperdisk Balanced volumes to the instance.
Hyperdisk Balanced High Availability performance limits
This section lists the maximum performance that Hyperdisk Balanced High Availability volumes
can achieve for each supported instance. A Hyperdisk Balanced High Availability volume's performance
when it's attached to an instance can't exceed the limits for the instance's
machine type.
The performance limits are also shared across all Hyperdisk Balanced High Availability volumes
attached to the same instance, regardless of each volume's provisioned performance.
Achieve higher performance with multiple Hyperdisk Balanced High Availability volumes
Certain instances can exceed the maximum performance for a single Hyperdisk Balanced High Availability volume—
100,000 IOPS or 1,200 MiB/s. An instance can achieve these
higher limits if you attach multiple Hyperdisk Balanced High Availability volumes to the instance.
If an instance's performance limit in the following table exceeds
100,000 IOPS or 1,200 MiB/s, then the instance can achieve that
limit only if you attach multiple Hyperdisk Balanced High Availability volumes.
For example, the performance limit for a c4a-*-72 instance using Hyperdisk Balanced High Availability
is 240,000 IOPS and 5,000 MiB/s. To achieve this maximum performance
you must attach at least five Hyperdisk Balanced High Availability volumes to the instance.
This section lists the maximum performance that Hyperdisk Extreme volumes
can achieve for each supported instance. A Hyperdisk Extreme volume's performance
when it's attached to an instance can't exceed the limits for the instance's
machine type.
The performance limits are also shared across all Hyperdisk Extreme volumes
attached to the same instance, regardless of each volume's provisioned performance.
Achieve higher performance with multiple Hyperdisk Extreme volumes
Certain instances can exceed the maximum performance for a single Hyperdisk Extreme volume—
350,000 IOPS or 5,000 MiB/s. An instance can only achieve these
higher limits if you attach multiple Hyperdisk Extreme volumes to the instance.
If an instance's performance limit in the following table exceeds 350,000 IOPS or
5,000 MiB/s, then the instance can only achieve that limit
if you attach multiple Hyperdisk Extreme volumes.
For example, the performance limit for a c3-*-176 instance using Hyperdisk Extreme
is
500,000
IOPS and
10,000
MiB/s.
To achieve this maximum performance you must attach at least two Hyperdisk Extreme volumes to the instance.
This section lists the maximum performance that Hyperdisk ML volumes
can achieve for each supported instance. A Hyperdisk ML volume's performance
when it's attached to an instance can't exceed the limits for the instance's
machine type.
The performance limits are also shared across all Hyperdisk ML volumes
attached to the same instance, regardless of each volume's provisioned performance.
Scenarios that require multiple instances to reach provisioned performance
The provisioned throughput for a Hyperdisk ML volume is shared between each instance the volume is attached to,
up to the maximum limit for the machine type that's listed in the following table.
If a Hyperdisk ML volume's provisioned performance is higher than an instance's performance limit,
the volume can achieve its provisioned performance only if it is attached to multiple instances.
a3-ultragpu-8 instances have a throughput limit of
4,000 MiB/s.
For example, suppose you have a Hyperdisk ML volume provisioned with 500,000 MiB/s of throughput.
and you want to attach the volume to a3-ultragpu-8 instances. A single
a3-ultragpu-8 instance can't acheieve more than 4,000 MiB/s
of throughput. Therefore, to achieve the volume's provisioned throughput, you must attach the volume
to at least 125 (500,000/4,000) a3-ultragpu-8 instances. On the
other hand, for the a2-highgpu-1g machine type, you would need 272 instances.
1 For a3-*-8g instances, performance depends on whether the Hyperdisk ML volume is attached to the instance in read-only or read-write mode.
Hyperdisk Throughput performance limits
This section lists the maximum performance that Hyperdisk Throughput volumes
can achieve for each supported instance. A Hyperdisk Throughput volume's performance
when it's attached to an instance can't exceed the limits for the instance's
machine type.
The performance limits are also shared across all Hyperdisk Throughput volumes
attached to the same instance, regardless of each volume's provisioned performance.
Achieve higher performance with multiple Hyperdisk Throughput volumes
Certain instances can exceed the maximum performance for a single Hyperdisk Throughput
volume—2,400 MiB/s. An instance can achieve these higher limits if you
attach multiple Hyperdisk Throughput volumes to the instance.
If an instance's performance limit in the following table exceeds 2,400 MiB/s,
then the instance can achieve that limit only if you attach multiple Hyperdisk Throughput volumes.
For example, the performance limit for a a3-*-8g instance using Hyperdisk Throughput volumes
is 3,000 MiB/s. Therefore, to achieve 3,000 MiB/s of
throughput, you must attach at least two Hyperdisk Throughput volumes to the instance.
The following sections describe the limits to the size and number of
Hyperdisk volumes you can attach to a single instance.
The limits discussed don't apply to any Local SSD disks attached to the same
instance.
Summary of Hyperdisk per-instance limits
Maximum total capacity per instance: The maximum total capacity of all the volumes
attached to an instance is between 257 TiB to 512 TiB, depending on
various factors. For details, see
Maximum total capacity per instance.
Maximum number of volumes attached to an instance: Compute Engine limits
the number of Hyperdisk volumes that you can attach to a single
instance. The following limits apply in order. When both limits apply,
the first rule in the list is enforced.
The number of Hyperdisk volumes
that you can attach to the instance: 8 to 128; depending on the
Hyperdisk type and the
instance's machine type.
The following examples demonstrate how the limits work.
Examples
Suppose you have a c3-*-96 instance. The following limits apply.
Maximum number of Hyperdisk volumes across all types:
128. However, for each Hyperdisk
type, the limits are as follows:
Hyperdisk Throughput: 64
Hyperdisk ML: 64
Hyperdisk Extreme: 8
Hyperdisk Balanced or Hyperdisk Balanced High Availability: 32
Maximum number of Persistent Disk and Hyperdisk volumes that you
can attach to the instance: 128
Maximum combined total capacity of all volumes: 512 TiB
The following examples illustrate these limits.
Maximum number of a single type of Hyperdisk per instance:
If you attach 8 Hyperdisk Extreme volumes to the instance, you can attach up to 123
more Hyperdisk volumes to the instance. However, you can
attach only 3 more Hyperdisk Extreme volumes to the instance because the maximum number
of Hyperdisk Extreme volumes 8.
Maximum number of Hyperdisk volumes per instance: 128. If
you attach 8 Hyperdisk Extreme volumes to the instance, you can attach up to
120 more Hyperdisk volumes to the instance.
Maximum number of disks or volumes per instance, across all types: 128. If
you attach a combined total of 128
Hyperdisk volumes to the instance, then you can't attach any more
Hyperdisk or Persistent Disk volumes. However, if you attach only
64 Hyperdisk volumes to the instance, you can
still attach up to 64 Persistent Disk or Hyperdisk volumes to the
instance.
Maximum total capacity per instance
The maximum total disk capacity (in TiB) across all Hyperdisk
and Persistent Disk types that you attach to an instance depends on the number of
vCPUs that the instance has. The capacity limits are as follows:
For machine types with less than 32 vCPUs:
257 TiB for all Hyperdisk or all Persistent Disk
257 TiB for a mixture of Hyperdisk and
Persistent Disk
For machine types with 32 or more vCPUs:
512 TiB for all Hyperdisk
512 TiB for a mixture of Hyperdisk and
Persistent Disk
257 TiB for all Persistent Disk
You can attach a combination of Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk
volumes to a single instance but the total disk capacity for Persistent Disk can't
exceed 257 TiB.
Maximum number of disks per instance, across all types
The maximum number of individual Hyperdisk, and, if supported,
Persistent Disk volumes that you can attach to an instance is 128. If you
attach 28 Hyperdisk volumes to a instance, you can still attach
up to 100 more Hyperdisk or Persistent Disk volumes to the same
instance.
Maximum Hyperdisk volumes per instance
The number of Hyperdisk volumes you can attach to an instance
depends on the machine type, with separate limits for each
Hyperdisk type.
For all other machine series, the limits are detailed in the
Supported disk types section within the documentation for each machine
series. To view these limits, refer to the corresponding links in the following
table.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Hard to understand","hardToUnderstand","thumb-down"],["Incorrect information or sample code","incorrectInformationOrSampleCode","thumb-down"],["Missing the information/samples I need","missingTheInformationSamplesINeed","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-12-09 UTC."],[],[]]
