Google Local SSD

Block storage software

Storage management software

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What is Google Local SSD

Google Local SSD is a Google Cloud Compute Engine feature that provides directly attached, ephemeral NVMe or SSD storage to virtual machine instances for low-latency, high-throughput workloads. It is used by cloud infrastructure teams and application owners for temporary data such as caches, scratch space, and high-performance processing pipelines. Local SSD data persists only for the life of the VM and is not a network-attached persistent volume, which differentiates it from managed block storage services.

Low-latency local I/O

Local SSD attaches physically to the host running the VM, which reduces network overhead compared with remote block volumes. This makes it suitable for I/O-intensive workloads such as caching layers, temporary databases, and batch processing scratch space. It supports high throughput and low latency characteristics that are difficult to achieve consistently with network-attached storage.

Simple VM-level provisioning

Local SSD is provisioned as part of a Compute Engine instance configuration rather than as a separate storage service. This simplifies deployment for workloads that need fast temporary storage without managing separate volume lifecycles. Capacity scales by adding Local SSD partitions supported by the selected machine type.

Good fit for ephemeral data

Because the storage is ephemeral, it aligns well with architectures that already replicate or can regenerate data (for example, distributed systems and stateless processing stages). It can reduce reliance on more expensive or higher-latency persistent storage for transient working sets. This can improve performance predictability for workloads designed around temporary local disks.

No durability guarantees

Local SSD data does not persist independently of the VM lifecycle and can be lost on VM stop, deletion, or certain host events. It is not intended for primary data storage or long-term retention. Users typically need application-level replication, backups, or external persistent storage to meet durability requirements.

Limited portability and mobility

Because Local SSD is tied to the VM host, it does not provide the same detach/reattach portability as managed block volumes. Operational tasks such as instance migration or resizing can be constrained by the underlying Local SSD attachment model. This can complicate maintenance workflows compared with network-attached block storage.

Capacity and configuration constraints

Available Local SSD capacity depends on the selected VM machine type, region/zone availability, and supported disk counts. It is not a general-purpose storage pool that can be resized independently like many managed block storage offerings. This can require more careful instance planning to match performance and capacity needs.

Plan & Pricing

Pricing model: Pay-as-you-go Free tier/trial: Google Cloud platform free-trial credits (see notes) Example costs (region: us-central1): Local SSD – $0.036 per GB per month (provisioned capacity). Note: billed for total provisioned capacity for the lifetime of the attached instance. Spot/Preemptible: Compute Engine charges discounted spot prices for Local SSDs attached to Spot/Preemptible VMs; usage may be free if the VM is preempted within the first minute. (See official docs for region-specific spot discounts.) Discount options: Resource-based committed use discounts (purchase commitments for vCPUs, memory, GPUs, and Local SSD disks) and Spot/Preemptible discounts available. Notes: Typical Local SSD disk unit is 375 GiB (capacity per disk) for many machine types; billing is per-GB-month for provisioned capacity. Prices shown are region-specific (example above is for us-central1).

Seller details

Google LLC

Mountain View, CA, USA

1998

Subsidiary

https://cloud.google.com/deep-learning-vm

https://x.com/googlecloud

https://www.linkedin.com/company/google/

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Google Local SSD

What is Google Local SSD

Low-latency local I/O

Simple VM-level provisioning

Good fit for ephemeral data

No durability guarantees

Limited portability and mobility

Capacity and configuration constraints

Plan & Pricing

Seller details

Tools by Google LLC

Best Google Local SSD alternatives

Popular categories

Generative AI & LLM

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Vertical AI

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