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Cloud Provider Benchmarks

Benchmarks

Cloud block storage benchmarks: IOPS, throughput and latency

Block storage performance depends on the volume type, its size (many providers scale IOPS with capacity) and the instance it is attached to. Runs record all three, use a fixed fio job file, and precondition the volume before measuring so that results reflect steady state rather than an empty disk.

Updated:

Direct answer

Measure block storage with fio using 4K random read/write at queue depth 32 for IOPS, 1M sequential I/O for throughput, and report p99 completion latency. Always state volume type and size, because provisioned performance often scales with capacity.

What is measured

  • Random 4K read and write IOPS (QD32)
  • Sequential 1M read and write throughput (MB/s)
  • Completion latency p50 and p99 (ms)
  • Snapshot and backup capability

Tools

  • fio — Flexible I/O tester

Provider capability matrix

Every value is based on provider documentation. Undocumented features are shown as unverified.

Documented capabilities
Criterion PortvMind AWS Azure Google Cloud DigitalOcean Vultr Hetzner
Storage & data
Block storage volumes Persistent, attachable and expandable block volumes. Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Volume snapshots Point-in-time snapshots of block volumes. Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Unverified Instance snapshots are available; block-volume snapshots not assessed. No Server snapshots only; no volume snapshots.
S3-compatible object storage Object storage reachable through the S3 API or an S3-compatible API. Yes Yes Native S3. No Blob Storage uses its own API. Partial XML API interoperability with HMAC keys; not full S3 API parity. Yes Spaces. Yes Yes EU locations; partial S3 API coverage.
Managed backup service Scheduled backup and restore for instances or volumes managed by the provider. Yes Instances, volumes and Kubernetes PVCs. Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Server backups.
Managed database Provider-operated relational database service. Planned Announced as coming soon; not generally available. Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No

Metric definitions

Metric definitions
Metric Unit Better Definition
Random read IOPS IOPS Higher fio randread, bs=4k, iodepth=32, numjobs=4, direct=1.
Random write IOPS IOPS Higher fio randwrite, bs=4k, iodepth=32, numjobs=4, direct=1.
Sequential read MB/s Higher fio read, bs=1M, iodepth=16.
p99 latency ms Lower 99th percentile completion latency for the random read job.

Verified results