> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.runpod.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# High-performance storage
> Premium storage tier for demanding AI workloads with up to 3x throughput and 4x IOPS.
export const InstantClusterTooltip = () => {
return Instant Cluster;
};
export const WorkersTooltip = () => {
return workers;
};
export const ServerlessTooltip = () => {
return Serverless;
};
export const PodsTooltip = () => {
return Pods;
};
High-performance storage is a network volume tier designed for data-intensive AI workloads. Its parallel storage architecture delivers high throughput and low latency under heavy concurrent load, even when thousands of processes access it simultaneously.
## Performance comparison
In internal benchmarks, high-performance storage delivers up to 3x the throughput and 4x the IOPS of standard storage on parallel operations.
| | Standard storage | High-performance storage |
| ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------- |
| Best for | General-purpose work, development, cost-sensitive jobs | Training, fine-tuning, latency-sensitive inference |
| Throughput | High | Up to 3x higher |
| IOPS | High | Up to 4x higher |
| Concurrency | Moderate | Optimized for massive parallelism |
| Relative cost | Lower | Premium |
Both tiers are fully supported. Choose based on whether storage performance sits on the critical path of your workload.
## When to choose High-performance storage
If your GPUs ever sit idle waiting on data (slow dataloaders, long checkpoint writes, sluggish model loads) you're a candidate for high-performance storage. If storage isn't your bottleneck, standard storage is the cost-effective choice.
| Use case | Why it helps |
| ----------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Training | Feeds GPUs at the rate they can consume data, preventing I/O bottlenecks and reducing training time. |
| Fine-tuning and checkpointing | Speeds up write-heavy operations like checkpoints, so jobs spend more time computing. |
| Inference | Cuts model load time from a central volume, lowering endpoint cold-start latency. |
## Create a high-performance volume
High-performance storage is available as a network volume type in select data centers.
1. Navigate to the [Storage page](https://console.runpod.io/user/storage) in the Runpod console.
2. Click **Create network volume**.
3. Select a data center that supports high-performance storage. You can either select the **High-performance** tab to filter data centers that support it, or look for the purple ⚡ icon on individual data centers.
4. Enter a name and set the volume size in GB.
5. The **High-performance storage** toggle appears automatically and is enabled by default. Leave it on to use high-performance storage, or turn it off to use standard storage instead.
6. Click **Create network volume**.
## Attach to your workloads
High-performance volumes work across the platform like standard network volumes.
* ****: Attach during Pod creation, or from the volume manager for existing setups.
* ****: Attach to an endpoint to speed up model loading and reduce cold-start latency. See [Network volumes for Serverless](/storage/network-volumes#network-volumes-for-serverless).
* **s**: New clusters can be provisioned with high-performance storage by default.
## Pricing
High-performance storage is priced per-GB at a premium to standard storage. The console displays per-GB and total monthly cost as you configure a volume.
Exact pricing varies by data center. Check the volume creation flow in the console for current rates.
## FAQ
**Is standard storage going away?**
No. Standard storage remains fully supported and is the recommended choice for general-purpose work. High-performance storage is an additional tier for performance-sensitive workloads.
**Which data centers support High-performance storage?**
Multiple US and European data centers support High-performance storage, with more rolling out over time. Supported data centers are marked with a purple ⚡ icon in the network volume creation flow.
**Can I migrate an existing standard volume to high-performance?**
Direct migration is not currently supported. To move data to a high-performance volume, create a new high-performance volume and transfer your data using the [S3-compatible API](/storage/s3-api) or [runpodctl](/storage/network-volumes#using-runpodctl).
## Next steps
Learn more about network volume management and features.
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