General-purpose machine family for Compute Engine

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This document describes the features of the Compute Engine general-purpose machine family, which has the best price-performance with the most flexible vCPU to memory ratios, and provides features that target most standard and cloud-native workloads.

The general-purpose machine family has predefined and custom machine types to align with your workload, depending on your requirements.

C4A is powered by Google's first generation Axion custom Arm-based processor built on Arm Neoverse V2. C4A supports 576 GB DDR5 memory, and up to 100 Gbps per VM Tier_1 networking performance.

C4 and N4 are powered by the fifth generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor (code-named Emerald Rapids). C4 offers a sustained, all-core turbo frequency of 3.1 GHz, 1.5 TB of DDR5 memory, and supports up to 200 Gbps of per VM Tier_1 networking performance. N4 offers a sustained, all-core turbo frequency of 2.9 GHz, 640 GB of DDR5 memory, and up to 50 Gbps of standard network bandwidth.

C3 is powered by fourth generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors and offers a sustained, all-core turbo frequency of 3.0 GHz, 8 channels of DDR5 memory, and up to 200 Gbps per VM Tier_1 networking performance. C3D is powered by fourth generation AMD EPYC Genoa processors and offers a sustained, all-core turbo frequency of 3.3 GHz, 2,880 GB of DDR5 memory, and up to 200 Gbps per VM Tier_1 networking performance.

For bare metal machine types, choose the C3 machine series.

All third and fourth generation general purpose VMs support Titanium.

E2, E2 shared-core, N2, N2D, Tau T2A, and Tau T2D are second generation machine series in this family; N1 and its related shared-core machine types are the first generation machine series.

Machine series	Workloads
N4, N2, N2D, N1	Medium traffic web and application servers Containerized microservices Business intelligence applications Virtual desktops CRM applications Development and test environments Batch processing Storage and archive
C4A, C4, C3, C3D	High traffic web, app and ad servers Databases and caches Game servers Data analytics Media streaming and transcoding Network appliances CPU-based ML training and inference
E2	Low-traffic web servers Back office apps Containerized microservices Small databases Virtual desktops Development and test environments
Tau T2A, Tau T2D	Scale-out workloads Web servers Containerized microservices Media transcoding Large-scale Java applications

To learn how your selection affects the performance of Persistent Disk volumes attached to your VMs, see Configure your Persistent Disk and VMs.

C4A machine series

C4A VMs are powered by Google's first Arm-based Axion™ processor. C4A offers machine types with up to 72 vCPUs and 576 GB of DDR5 memory and is available in standard, highmem, and highcpu machine series. It is built on Titanium with network offloads and enabled with up to 50 Gbps of standard network performance, and up to 100 Gbps per VM Tier_1 networking performance.

C4A VMs are placed within a single node with Uniform Memory Access (UMA) and also support sole tenant nodes to deliver consistent performance. C4A uses Google Cloud's latest generation storage options including Hyperdisk Balanced and Hyperdisk Extreme.

In summary, the C4A machine series:

• Is powered by the Google Axion CPU and Titanium.
• Supports up to 72 vCPUs and 576 GB of DDR5 memory.
• Offers multiple predefined machine types.
• Supports standard network configuration with up to 50 Gbps bandwidth.
• Supports per VM Tier_1 networking performance with up to 100 Gbps bandwidth.
• Supports the following discount and consumption options:
  • Resource-based and flexible committed use discounts
  • Spot VMs
  • Reservations
• Supports the performance monitoring unit (PMU).
• Doesn't support compact placement policies.
• See Known issues for information about creating committed use discounts (CUDs) for C4A.

For information about migrating to Arm VMs, read the Arm on Compute document.

C4A machine types

C4A VMs are available as predefined configurations in sizes ranging from 1 vCPU to 72 vCPUs and up to 576 GB of memory.

• standard: 4 GB memory per vCPU
• highcpu: 2 GB memory per vCPU
• highmem: 8 GB memory per vCPU

C4A doesn't support custom machine types.

Supported disk types for C4A

C4A VMs support only the NVMe disk interface and can use the following Hyperdisk block storage:

• Hyperdisk Balanced (hyperdisk-balanced)
• Hyperdisk Extreme (hyperdisk-extreme)

C4A doesn't support Persistent Disk.

Disk and capacity limits

You can use a mixture of different Hyperdisk types with a VM, but the maximum total disk capacity (in TiB) across all disk types can't exceed:

• For machine types with less than 32 vCPUs: 257 TiB for all Hyperdisk

• For machine types with 32 or more vCPUs: 512 TiB for all Hyperdisk

For details about the capacity limits, see Hyperdisk capacity limits per VM.

Network support for C4A VMs

C4A instances require gVNIC network interfaces. C4A instances support up to 50 Gbps network bandwidth for standard networking and up to 100 Gbps network bandwidth per VM Tier_1 networking performance.

Before migrating to C4A or creating C4A VMs, make sure that the operating system image that you use is fully supported for C4A. Fully supported images include the updated gVNIC driver, even if the guest OS shows the gve driver version as 1.0.0. If your C4A VM is using an operating system with limited support, which includes an older version of the gVNIC driver, the VM might not be able to achieve the maximum network bandwidth for C4A VMs.

If you use a custom OS image with the C4A machine series, you can manually install the most recent gVNIC driver. The gVNIC driver version v1.3.0 or later is recommended for use with C4A VMs. Google recommends using the latest gVNIC driver version to benefit from additional features and bug fixes.

C4 machine series

C4 VMs are powered by 5th generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors (code-named Emerald Rapids) and Titanium. The C4 machine series is designed to deliver price-performance and enterprise-grade reliability along with a maintenance experience for your most demanding workloads.

Appropriate workloads include web and app serving, game servers, databases and caches, video streaming, data analytics, network appliances, and CPU-based ML inference.

C4 VMs are designed to achieve maximum performance from single-core turbo boosting. You can disable vCPU boosting and limit the vCPUs to the long term sustainable all-core-turbo frequency for more consistent vCPU performance. You can do this by setting turboMode=ALL_CORE_MAX in the AdvancedMachineFeatures settings.

In summary, the C4 machine series:

• Is powered by 5th generation Intel Emerald Rapids processor and Titanium processors
• Lets you switch between core-boosting performance and steady all-core turbo performance for your vCPUs.
• Supports up to 192 vCPUs and 1.5 TB of DDR5 memory
• Offers multiple predefined machine types
• Supports standard network configuration with up to 100 Gbps bandwidth
• Supports per VM Tier_1 networking performance with up to 200 Gbps bandwidth
• Supports Intel Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX), a built-in accelerator that significantly improves the performance of deep-learning training and inference on the CPU.
• Supports the following discount and consumption options:
  • Resource-based and flexible committed use discounts
  • Spot VMs
  • Reservations
• Supports the performance monitoring unit (PMU).

C4 machine types

C4 VMs are available as predefined configurations in sizes ranging from 2 vCPUs to 192 vCPUs and up to 1,488 GB of memory.

• standard: 3.75 GB memory per vCPU
• highcpu: 2 GB memory per vCPU
• highmem: 7.75 GB memory per vCPU

C4 doesn't support custom machine types.

Supported disk types for C4

C4 VMs support only the NVMe disk interface and can use the following Hyperdisk block storage:

• Hyperdisk Balanced (hyperdisk-balanced)
• Hyperdisk Extreme (hyperdisk-extreme)

C4 does not support Persistent Disk. Read Move your workload from an existing VM to a new VM to migrate your Persistent Disk resources to a newer machine series.

Disk and capacity limits

You can use a mixture of different Hyperdisk types with a VM, but the maximum total disk capacity (in TiB) across all disk types can't exceed:

• For machine types with less than 32 vCPUs: 257 TiB for all Hyperdisk

• For machine types with 32 or more vCPUs: 512 TiB for all Hyperdisk

For details about the capacity limits, see Hyperdisk capacity limits per VM.

The number of Hyperdisk volumes of all types that you can attach to a VM can't exceed the limits stated in the Max number of Hyperdisk volumes. For details about these limits, see Hyperdisk capacity.

The combined total number of Hyperdisk Balanced and Hyperdisk Extreme volumes attached to a single VM depends on the number of vCPUs the VM has, and can't exceed these limits:

Network support for C4 VMs

C4 VM instances require gVNIC network interfaces. C4 supports up to 100 Gbps network bandwidth for standard networking and up to 200 Gbps with per VM Tier_1 networking performance.

Before migrating to C4 or creating C4 VMs, make sure that the operating system image that you use is fully supported for C4. Fully supported images include the updated gVNIC driver, even if the guest OS shows the gve driver version as 1.0.0. If your C4 VM is using an operating system with limited support, which includes an older version of the gVNIC driver, the VM might not be able to achieve the maximum network bandwidth for C4 VMs.

If you use a custom OS image with the C4 machine series, you can manually install the most recent gVNIC driver. The gVNIC driver version v1.3.0 or later is recommended for use with C4 VMs. Google recommends using the latest gVNIC driver version to benefit from additional features and bug fixes.

N4 machine series

N4 VMs are powered by the 5th generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors (code-named Emerald Rapids) and Titanium. N4 machine types are built from the ground up for flexibility and cost optimization through an efficient architecture of streamlined features, shapes, and next generation dynamic resource management, which makes better use of resources on host machines. N4 offers flexible options like custom machine types that lets you use choose varied combinations of compute and memory to optimize costs and reduce resource waste. N4 is suited for a variety of general-purpose workloads that don't require peak processing power at all times.

In summary, the N4 machine series:

• Is powered by 5th generation Intel Emerald Rapids processor and Titanium processors.
• Supports up to 80 vCPUs and 640 GB of DDR5 memory.
• Offers multiple predefined machine types and custom machine types and extended custom memory up to 640 GB.
• Supports standard network configuration with up to 50 Gbps bandwidth
• Supports Intel Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX), a built-in accelerator that significantly improves the performance of deep-learning training and inference on the CPU.
• Supports the following discount and consumption options:
  • Resource-based and flexible committed use discounts
  • Spot VMs
  • Reservations
• Does not support Local SSD or per VM Tier_1 networking performance.

N4 machine types

N4 VMs are available as predefined configurations in sizes ranging from 2 vCPUs to 80 vCPUs and up to 640 GB of memory.

• standard: 4 GB memory per vCPU
• highcpu: 2 GB memory per vCPU
• highmem: 8 GB memory per vCPU

Supported disk types for N4

N4 VMs supports only the NVMe disk interface and can use the following Hyperdisk block storage:

• Hyperdisk Balanced (hyperdisk-balanced)

N4 does not support Persistent Disk or Local SSD. Read Move your workload from an existing VM to a new VM to migrate your Persistent Disk resources to a newer machine series.

Disk and capacity limits

The number of Hyperdisk volumes of all types that you can attach to a VM can't exceed the limits stated in the Max number of Hyperdisk volumes. For details about these limits, see Hyperdisk capacity.

The combined total number of Hyperdisk Balanced volumes attached to a single VM depends on the number of vCPUs the VM has, and can't exceed these limits:

For VMs running Microsoft Windows and using the NVMe disk interface, the combined number of both Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk attached volumes can't exceed a total of 16 disks. See Known issues. Local SSD volumes are excluded from this issue.

N4 storage limits are described in the following table:

Network support for N4 VMs

N4 instances require gVNIC network interfaces. N4 instances support up to 50 Gbps network bandwidth for standard networking and don't support per VM Tier_1 networking performance.

Before migrating to N4 or creating N4 VMs, make sure that the operating system image that you use is fully supported for N4. Fully supported images include the updated gVNIC driver, even if the guest OS shows the gve driver version as 1.0.0. If your N4 VM is using an operating system with limited support, which includes an older version of the gVNIC driver, the VM might not be able to achieve the maximum network bandwidth for N4 VMs.

If you use a custom OS image with the N4 machine series, you can manually install the most recent gVNIC driver. The gVNIC driver version v1.3.0 or later is recommended for use with N4 VMs. Google recommends using the latest gVNIC driver version to benefit from additional features and bug fixes.

C3D machine series

C3D VMs are powered by the 4th generation AMD EPYC™ (Genoa) processor with a maximum frequency of 3.7 Ghz. C3D machine types are optimized for the underlying hardware architecture to deliver optimal, reliable, and consistent performance.

C3D uses Titanium, which enables higher levels of networking performance, isolation and security. The C3D machine series supports Tier_1 networking bandwidth of up to 100 Gbps and up to 200 Gbps.

In summary, the C3D machine series:

• Is powered by 4th generation AMD EPYC™ processor and Titanium.
• Supports up to 360 vCPUs and 2,880 GB of DDR5 memory.
• Supports standard network configuration with up to 100 Gbps bandwidth and Tier_1 networking with up to 200 Gbps bandwidth.
• Supports the following discount and consumption options:
  • Resource-based committed use discounts (CUDs)
  • Spot VMs
  • Reservations
• Supports Confidential VM with AMD SEV.

C3D machine types

C3D VMs are available in standard, highcpu, highmem, and lssd configurations in sizes ranging from 4 to 360 vCPUs and up to 2,880 GB of memory. The highcpu configuration offers the lowest price per performance for compute-bound workloads that don't require large amounts of memory.

C3D doesn't support custom machine types.

Supported disk types for C3D

C3D VMs support only the NVMe disk interface and can use the following block storage types:

• Balanced Persistent Disk (pd-balanced)
• SSD (performance) Persistent Disk (pd-ssd)
• Hyperdisk Balanced (hyperdisk-balanced)
• Hyperdisk ML (hyperdisk-ml)
• Hyperdisk Extreme (hyperdisk-extreme)
• Hyperdisk Throughput (hyperdisk-throughput)
• Local SSD (only available with -lssd machine types)

To use Local SSD with C3D, create your VM using the -lssd variant of the C3D machine types. Selecting this machine type creates a VM of the specified size with Local SSD partitions attached. You must use a machine type that ends in -lssd to use Local SSD with your C3D VM; you can't attach Local SSD volumes separately.

Disk and capacity limits

For VMs running Microsoft Windows and using the NVMe disk interface, the combined number of both Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk attached volumes can't exceed a total of 16 disks. See Known issues. Local SSD volumes are excluded from this issue.

C3D storage limits are described in the following table:

Network support for C3D VMs

C3D VM instances require gVNIC network interfaces. C3D supports up to 100 Gbps network bandwidth for standard networking and up to 200 Gbps with per VM Tier_1 networking performance.

Before migrating to C3D or creating C3D VMs, make sure that the operating system image that you use is fully supported for C3D. Fully supported images include the updated gVNIC driver, even if the guest OS shows the gve driver version as 1.0.0. If your C3D VM is using an operating system with limited support, which includes an older version of the gVNIC driver, the VM might not be able to achieve the maximum network bandwidth for C3D VMs.

If you use a custom OS image with the C3D machine series, you can manually install the most recent gVNIC driver. The gVNIC driver version v1.3.0 or later is recommended for use with C3D VMs. Google recommends using the latest gVNIC driver version to benefit from additional features and bug fixes.

C3 machine series

C3 VMs are powered by the 4th generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors (code-named Sapphire Rapids), DDR5 memory, and Titanium. C3 machine types are optimized for the underlying NUMA architecture to deliver optimal, reliable, and consistent performance.

The new C3 machine series is a major leap in our purpose-built infrastructure offerings:

• Leveraging Titanium processors to offload networking from the CPUs
• Delivering high performance block-storage with Google Cloud Hyperdisk
• Speeding up ML training and inference with Intel AMX

C3 uses Titanium to enable higher levels of networking performance, isolation and security. The C3 machine series supports a default network bandwidth of up to 100 Gbps and up to 200 Gbps with per VM Tier_1 networking performance. Titanium has been designed from the ground up to enable updates that don't impact running workloads.

The C3 machine series provides some of the largest general-purpose machine types, letting you create VM instances with up to 176 vCPUs and 1.4 TB of memory.

C3 has bare metal machine types, which allow you to access all the raw compute resources of the server. You can create bare metal instances with 192 vCPUs and up to 1,536 GB of memory. Bare metal instances also provide access to several onboard, function-specific accelerators and offloads:

• Intel-QAT
• Intel-DLB
• Intel DSA
• Intel IAA

If your organization uses a Shielded VM policy, then you must create a custom org policy that excludes bare metal shapes before you can create a bare metal instance.

In summary, the C3 machine series:

• Is powered by Intel 4th Generation Xeon processors and Titanium.
• Supports up to 176 vCPUs and 1.4 TB of DDR5 memory for VMs.
• Supports up to 192 vCPUs and 1,536 GB of memory for bare metal instances.
• Supports standard network configuration with up to 100 Gbps bandwidth and Tier_1 networking with up to 200 Gbps bandwidth.
• Supports Intel Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX), a built-in accelerator that significantly improves the performance of deep-learning training and inference on the CPU.
• Supports the following discount and consumption options:
  • Resource-based committed use discounts (CUDs)
  • Flexible CUDs
  • Spot VMs
  • Reservations
• Supports Confidential VM with Intel TDX.
• Doesn't support the following:
  • Sustained use discounts (SUDs)
• C3 bare metal instances don't support the following:
  • Google Kubernetes Engine
  • Shielded VM
  • Nested virtualization

C3 machine types

C3 VMs are available in predefined machine types with sizes ranging from 4 to 176 vCPUs and up to 1,408 GB of memory.

To use Local SSD with C3, create your VM using the -lssd variant of the C3 machine types. Selecting this machine type creates a VM of the specified size with Local SSD partitions attached. You must use a c3-standard-*-lssd machine type to use Local SSD with your VM; you can't attach Local SSD volumes separately.

To create a bare metal instance with C3, use one of the following machine types:

• c3-standard-192-metal
• c3-highcpu-192-metal
• c3-highmem-192-metal

C3 doesn't support custom machine types.

C3 regional availability for bare metal instances

For C3 VMs, you can view the available regions and zones in the Available regions and zones table.

• Select C3 in the Select a machine type drop-down menu to see all the zones where you can create a C3 VM.
• You can also use the Select a location drop-down menu to limit the results to a geographical area.

C3 bare metal instances are available in the following regions and zones:

Zone	High-CPU	Standard	High-mem
asia-southeast1-a	—
europe-west1-b		—
europe-west1-c		—
europe-west4-b		—
us-central1-a	—
us-central1-c		—	—
us-east1-c
us-east1-d	—	—
us-east4-a		—	—
us-east4-c	—		—
us-east5-a	—
us-east5-b

Supported disk types for C3

C3 VMs support only the NVMe disk interface and can use the following block storage types:

• Zonal balanced Persistent Disk (pd-balanced)
• Zonal SSD (performance) Persistent Disk (pd-ssd)
• Hyperdisk Extreme (hyperdisk-extreme)—Requires at least 64 vCPUs
• Hyperdisk ML (hyperdisk-ml)
• Hyperdisk Throughput (hyperdisk-throughput)
• Hyperdisk Balanced (hyperdisk-balanced)
• Hyperdisk Balanced High Availability (hyperdisk-balanced-high-availability) (Preview)
• Local SSD—only available with -lssd machine types

A set amount of Local SSD disks are added to the C3 VM when you use the -lssd machine type. This is the only way to include Local SSD storage with a C3 VM.

C3 bare metal instances support only Hyperdisk storage. You can't use Local SSD disks with bare metal instances.

Disk and capacity limits

For VMs running Microsoft Windows and using the NVMe disk interface, the combined number of both Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk attached volumes can't exceed a total of 16 disks. See Known issues. Local SSD volumes are excluded from this issue.

C3 storage limits are described in the following table:

Network support for C3 VMs

The following network interface drivers are required:

• C3 VM instances require gVNIC network interfaces.
• C3 bare metal instances require the Intel IDPF LAN PF device driver.

C3 supports up to 100 Gbps network bandwidth for standard networking and up to 200 Gbps with per VM Tier_1 networking performance for VM and bare metal instances.

Before migrating to C3 or creating C3 VMs or bare metal instances, make sure that the operating system image that you use is fully supported for C3. Fully supported images include the IDPF network driver for bare metal instances or the updated gVNIC driver for VM instances. If an OS image is fully supported, it has the updated gVNIC driver installed, even if the guest OS shows the gve driver version as 1.0.0. If your C3 VM is using an operating system with limited support, which includes an older version of the gVNIC driver, the VM might not be able to achieve the maximum network bandwidth for C3 VMs.

If you use a custom OS image to create a C3 VM, you can manually install the most recent gVNIC driver. The gVNIC driver version v1.3.0 or later is recommended for use with C3 VMs. Google recommends using the latest gVNIC driver version to benefit from additional features and bug fixes.

N2D machine series

The N2D machine series can run on either AMD EPYC Milan or AMD EPYC Rome processors. The third generation AMD EPYC Milan processor is available only in specific regions and zones. To use AMD Milan as your minimum CPU platform, request it when you create your VM instance.

The N2D series provides some of the largest general-purpose machine types with up to 224 vCPUs and 896 GB of memory and vCPU to memory ratios of 1:1, 1:4, and 1:8. The AMD EPYC Rome processors in this series run with a base frequency of 2.25 GHz, an effective frequency of 2.7 GHz, and a max boost frequency of 3.3 GHz.

In summary, the N2D series:

• Support up to 224 vCPUs and 896 GB of memory.
• Support 50 Gbps and 100 Gbps high-bandwidth network configurations.
• Available in predefined and custom VMs.
• Offer higher memory-to-core ratios for VMs created with the extended memory feature. Using the extended memory feature helps you avoid per-CPU software licensing costs while providing access to more than 8 GB of memory per vCPU.
• Powered by third generation AMD EPYC Milan and second generation AMD EPYC Rome processors.
• Supports the following discount and consumption options:
  • Resource-based committed use discounts (CUDs)
  • Flexible CUDs
  • Sustained use discounts (SUDs)
  • Spot VMs
  • Reservations
• Does not support GPUs or nested virtualization.
• Supports Confidential VM with AMD SEV and AMD SEV-SNP.

N2D VMs don't support GPUs or nested virtualization.

N2D machine types

The following table lists the features of the N2D machine series. For some machine types, certain features are not applicable (N/A).

For details on the pricing information, see the following:

• For machine type pricing, see VM pricing page.
• Disk usage and network usage is charged separately from machine type pricing. For details, see Disk and image pricing and Network pricing.
• For per VM Tier_1 network performance billing rates, see Tier_1 higher bandwidth network pricing.

Supported disk types for N2D

N2D VMs support both the SCSI and the NVMe disk interface and can use the following block storage types:

• Zonal and regional standard Persistent Disk (pd-standard)
• Zonal and regional balanced Persistent Disk (pd-balanced)
• Zonal and regional SSD Persistent Disk (pd-ssd)
• Hyperdisk Throughput (hyperdisk-throughput)
• Local SSD

N2D VMs with Confidential Computing running Microsoft Windows with the NVMe disk interface have a disk attachment limitation of 16 disks. See Known issues for details.

N2 machine series

The N2 machine series has flexible sizing between 2 to 128 vCPUs and 0.5 to 8 GB of memory per vCPU. Machine types in this series run on the following processors:

• Ice Lake—offered in specific regions and zones. It is the default processor for larger machine types.

• Cascade Lake—the default for machine types up to 80 vCPUs. If you want to create VMs with Ice Lake, you must set it as the minimum CPU platform.

You can find more details about these two processors on the CPU platforms page.

Workloads that can take advantage of the higher clock frequency are a good choice for this series. These workloads can get higher per-thread performance while benefiting from all the flexibility that the general-purpose machine family offers.

In summary, the N2 machine series:

• Supports up to 128 vCPUs and 864 GB of memory.
• Supports 50 Gbps, 75 Gbps, and 100 Gbps high-bandwidth network configurations.
• Is available in predefined and custom VMs.
• Has higher memory-to-core ratios for VMs created with the extended memory feature. Using the extended memory feature helps control per-CPU software licensing costs while providing access to more than 8 GB of memory per vCPU.
• Supports the following discount and consumption options:
  • Resource-based committed use discounts (CUDs)
  • Flexible CUDs
  • Sustained use discounts (SUDs)
  • Spot VMs
  • Reservations

N2 machine types

For details on the pricing information, see the following:

• For machine type pricing, see VM pricing page.
• Disk usage and network usage is charged separately from machine type pricing. For details, see Disk and image pricing and Network pricing.
• For per VM Tier_1 network performance billing rates, see Tier_1 higher bandwidth network pricing.

Supported disk types for N2

N2 VMs support both the SCSI and the NVMe disk interface and can use the following block storage types:

• Zonal and regional standard Persistent Disk (pd-standard)
• Zonal and regional balanced Persistent Disk (pd-balanced)
• Zonal and regional SSD Persistent Disk (pd-ssd)
• Extreme Persistent Disk (pd-extreme)
• Hyperdisk Extreme (hyperdisk-extreme). Not supported with custom N2 machine types.
• Hyperdisk Throughput (hyperdisk-throughput)
• Local SSD

E2 machine series

The cost-optimized E2 machine series have between 2 to 32 vCPUs with a ratio of 0.5 GB to 8 GB of memory per vCPU for standard VMs, and 0.25 to 1 vCPUs with 0.5 GB to 8 GB of memory for shared-core E2 machine types. The E2 machine series offers both Intel and AMD EPYC processors. The processor is selected for you at the time of VM creation. Machine types in this series are available in all regions and zones and support a virtio memory balloon device.

In summary, the E2 machine series:

• Supports up to 32 vCPUs and 128 GB of memory.
• Supports Intel and AMD EPYC Rome and Milan processors.
• Is available in predefined and custom VMs.
• Offers the lowest on demand pricing across the general-purpose machine types.
• Supports the following discount and consumption options:
  • Resource-based committed use discounts (CUDs)
  • Flexible CUDs
  • Spot VMs
  • Reservations
• Does not offer sustained use discounts (SUDs); however, it provides consistently low on-demand and committed-use pricing.
• Does not support GPUs, Local SSDs, sole-tenant nodes, or nested virtualization.

Shared-core VMs

The E2 machine series also contains shared-core machine types that use context- switching to time-share a physical core between vCPUs for multitasking. Different shared-core machine types sustain different amounts of time on a physical core.

Unlike predefined machine types and custom machine types, shared-core machine types have a predefined price that includes both vCPUs and memory. For more information, see VM instance pricing.

CPU bursting

Shared-core machine types offer bursting capabilities that allow instances to use additional physical CPU for short periods of time. Bursting happens automatically when your VM requires more physical CPU than originally allocated. During these spikes, your VM will opportunistically take advantage of available physical CPU in bursts. Note that bursts are not permanent and are only possible periodically.

• e2-micro, e2-small, and e2-medium shared-core VMs can burst for dozens of seconds.
• If the CPU is utilized at 100%, then the burst lasts as follows:
• e2-micro: 30 seconds
• e2-small: 60 seconds
• e2-medium 120 seconds

The exact burst time is determined by a Token bucket meaning utilizing the CPU less than 100% will result in longer bursts. Bursting doesn't incur any additional charges. You are charged the listed on-demand price for e2 shared-core, f1-micro, and g1-small VMs.

E2 Limitations

• The E2 machine series does not offer SUDs; however, it provides consistently low on-demand and committed-use pricing.
• The E2 machine series does not support GPUs, Local SSDs, sole-tenant nodes, or nested virtualization.

E2 machine types

E2 is available in standard, highmem, and highcpu configurations, as well as shared-core machine type. In general, E2 shared-core machine types can be more cost-effective for running small, non-resource intensive applications than standard, high-memory, or high-CPU machine types.

Supported disk types for E2 VMs

E2 VMs can use the following block storage types:

• Zonal and regional balanced Persistent Disk (pd-balanced)
• Zonal and regional SSD Persistent Disk (pd-ssd)
• Zonal and regional standard Persistent Disk (pd-standard)

N1 machine series

The N1 machine series is Compute Engine's first generation general-purpose machine series available on Intel Skylake, Broadwell, Haswell, Sandy Bridge, and Ivy Bridge CPU platforms.

In summary, the N1 machine series:

• Supports up to 96 vCPUs and 624 GB of memory.
• Has both predefined machine types and custom machine types. Custom machine types can be created within a wide range of memory-to-core ratio, ranging from 1 GB per vCPU to 6.5 GB per vCPU.
• Offers higher memory-to-core ratios for VMs created with the extended memory feature.
• Supports the following discount and consumption options:
  • Resource-based committed use discounts (CUDs)
  • Flexible CUDs
  • Sustained use discounts (SUDs); N1 machine series offers a higher SUD percentage than the N2 machine series.
  • Spot VMs
  • Reservations
• Supports Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) in select zones.
• Can support up to 8 virtual interfaces per instance.

N1 machine types

Supported disk types for N1 VMs

N1 VMs can use the following block storage types:

• Zonal and regional balanced Persistent Disk (pd-balanced)
• Zonal and regional SSD Persistent Disk (pd-ssd)
• Zonal and regional standard Persistent Disk (pd-standard)
• Local SSD disks

Tau T2A machine series

The Tau T2A machine series runs on the Ampere Altra Arm processor with a base frequency of 3.0 GHz. Tau T2A offers predefined machine types with 1 to 48 vCPUs, supports 4 GB of memory per vCPU, and offers a maximum of 32 Gbps of outbound data transfer.

This series is available only in select regions and zones.

The Tau T2A machine series doesn't support simultaneous multithreading (SMT); each vCPU is equivalent to an entire core.

Tau T2A machine types

Tau T2A standard machine types have 4 GB of system memory per vCPU.

Machine types	vCPUs*	Memory (GB)	Max number of Persistent Disk (PDs)†	Max total PD size (TiB)	Local SSD	Maximum egress bandwidth (Gbps)‡	Tier 1 egress bandwidth (Gbps)
t2a-standard-1	1	4	128	257	No	10	N/A
t2a-standard-2	2	8	128	257	No	10	N/A
t2a-standard-4	4	16	128	257	No	10	N/A
t2a-standard-8	8	32	128	257	No	16	N/A
t2a-standard-16	16	64	128	257	No	32	N/A
t2a-standard-32	32	128	128	257	No	32	N/A
t2a-standard-48	48	192	128	257	No	32	N/A

Tau T2A Limitations

The Tau T2A machine series does not support:

• Custom machine types
• Sole tenant nodes
• Nested virtualization
• Extreme Persistent Disk
• Local SSD
• Regional Persistent Disk
• Virtio-SCSI Storage Controller and Virtio-Net Ethernet Adapter
• Windows Server or Windows Client OS
• 32-bit mode ELO (guest userspace support)
• Committed use discounts (CUDs) or Sustained use discounts (SUDs); however, it offers Spot VM discounts.
• Virtual display devices

T2A supports the Secure boot feature, but not all public OS images for T2A support secure boot.

Supported disk types for T2A

T2A VMs support only the NVMe disk interface and can use the following block storage types:

• Zonal standard Persistent Disk (pd-standard)
• Zonal balanced Persistent Disk (pd-balanced)
• Zonal SSD (performance) Persistent Disk (pd-ssd)

For VMs running Microsoft Windows and using the NVMe disk interface, the combined number of both Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk attached volumes can't exceed a total of 16 disks. See Known issues. Local SSD volumes are excluded from this issue.

Tau T2D machine series

The Tau T2D machine series run on the third generation AMD EPYC Milan processor with a base frequency of 2.45 GHz, an effective frequency of 2.8 GHz, and a max boost frequency of 3.5 GHz. This series has predefined machine types of up to 60 vCPUs, support 4 GB of memory per vCPU, and a maximum of 32 Gbps outbound data transfer. It also supports the following discount and consumption options:

• Resource-based committed use discounts (CUDs)
• Spot VMs
• Reservations

This series is available only in select regions and zones.

Machine types in the Tau T2D machine series have simultaneous multithreading (SMT) disabled; therefore a vCPU is equivalent to an entire core.

Tau T2D Limitations

Tau T2D VMs do not support:

• Local SSD
• Regional Persistent Disk
• Custom VMs
• Sole-tenant nodes
• Extreme Persistent Disk
• GPUs
• Nested virtualization
• Flexible CUDs
• Sustained use discounts (SUDs)
• Confidential VMs

Tau T2D machine types

Tau T2D standard machine types have 4 GB of system memory per vCPU.

Machine types	vCPUs*	Memory (GB)	Maximum egress bandwidth (Gbps)‡	Tier 1 egress bandwidth (Gbps)
t2d-standard-1	1	4	10	N/A
t2d-standard-2	2	8	10	N/A
t2d-standard-4	4	16	10	N/A
t2d-standard-8	8	32	16	N/A
t2d-standard-16	16	64	32	N/A
t2d-standard-32	32	128	32	N/A
t2d-standard-48	48	192	32	N/A
t2d-standard-60	60	240	32	N/A

For details on the pricing information, see the following:

• For machine type pricing, see VM pricing page.
• Disk usage and network usage is charged separately from machine type pricing. For details, see Disk and image pricing and Network pricing.

Supported disk types for T2D

T2D VMs support both the SCSI and the NVMe disk interface and can use the following block storage types:

• Zonal standard Persistent Disk (pd-standard)
• Zonal balanced Persistent Disk (pd-balanced)
• Zonal SSD (performance) Persistent Disk (pd-ssd)
• Hyperdisk Throughput (hyperdisk-throughput)

Machine types	Max number of disks per VM*	Max number of Hyperdisk volumes per VM†	Max total disk size (TiB) across all disks‡	Local SSD
t2d-standard-1	128	20	257	No
t2d-standard-2	128	20	257	No
t2d-standard-4	128	24	257	No
t2d-standard-8	128	32	257	No
t2d-standard-16	128	48	257	No
t2d-standard-32	128	64	512	No
t2d-standard-48	128	64	512	No
t2d-standard-60	128	64	512	No

Custom machine types

If none of the predefined machine types in the general-purpose machine family match your workload needs, you can create a VM with a custom machine type.

Creating a VM with a custom machine type is ideal for workloads that require more processing power or more memory, but don't need all of the upgrades that are provided by the next larger predefined machine type.

It costs slightly more to use a custom machine type than an equivalent predefined machine type, and there are limitations in the amount of memory and vCPUs that you can select. The on-demand prices for custom machine types include a 5% premium over the on-demand and commitment prices for predefined machine types.

You can create a VM with a custom machine type for only the N and E machine series in the general-purpose machine family. Custom machine types are not available for the C and Tau machine series. Custom machine types are subject to the same Persistent Disk limits as E2, N2, and N1 predefined machine types. The maximum total Persistent Disk size for each VM is 257 TiB and the max number of Persistent Disk is 128. N4 custom machines types are subject to the limitations of Hyperdisk capacity storage.

If a custom machine type doesn't meet your requirements, it's possible to customize the number of visible CPU cores on many machine types. It's also possible to set the number of threads per core for certain machine types. You can make these changes during VM instance creation, or by editing an existing VM instance. Reducing the number of visible cores might impact the cost of your VMs. Be sure to review pricing prior to making any changes.

What's next

• Network bandwidth
• Configuring a VM with a high-bandwidth network
• Virtual machine instances
• VM instance pricing