Alibaba Cloud File Storage NAS and Cloud Parallel File Storage offer various types of file systems. You can select one or more of these systems based on your business workloads to provide the required reliability, security, and persistence.
Selection overview
When you select an Alibaba Cloud file storage service, make your choice based on your business scenario:
AI Agent
For multi-tenant AI Agent scenarios that require independent, isolated Workspaces for many end users, choose AgenticFS. Workspaces can be used for session persistence, user-level sandboxes, and Notebook environments. For specifications, see the AgenticFS column in the comparison table. For a product overview, see AgenticFS.
Intelligent computing and HPC
For I/O-intensive scenarios with high throughput, high input/output operations per second (IOPS), and many files, such as AI training, autonomous driving, genetic computing, film and television rendering, and EDA simulation, choose CPFS or CPFS for Lingjun.
Enterprise applications
For workloads that require low response latency, such as container PersistentVolumes (PVs), Linux or Windows enterprise applications, web content management, CI/CD, and online education or gaming, choose Extreme NAS or General-purpose NAS (Advanced).
General-Purpose Sharing
For latency-insensitive, cost-sensitive workloads that require large capacity, such as database backups, log storage, Linux home or Windows user directories, and archiving, choose General-purpose NAS (Storage-optimized).
Prices vary by file system type and specifications. Choose a file storage service that meets your business needs and budget to avoid wasting resources or exceeding your budget.
You cannot convert a file system from one storage class to another. For more information about the limits of NAS and AgenticFS, see Limits for NAS and AgenticFS. For more information about the limits of CPFS, see Limits for CPFS general-purpose edition and Limits for CPFS for Lingjun.
File system selection
Selection reference | General-purpose NAS | Extreme NAS | AgenticFS | CPFS | CPFS for Lingjun | ||||||
Storage-optimized | Advanced | Performance | 100 MB/s | 200 MB/s | 400 MB/s | ||||||
Scenarios | Cost-sensitive file sharing workloads that have low requirements for response latency, such as database backups, log storage, Windows user directories, and Linux home directories. | Latency-sensitive file sharing workloads that require low response latency, such as data persistence for containers, AI training data storage, industrial simulation, and genetic computing. | Latency-sensitive file sharing workloads that require low response latency, such as Linux or Windows enterprise applications, container PVs, web content management, and genetic computing. | Latency-sensitive Linux enterprise applications, CI/CD staging environments, high-performance web services, online education services, and online game services. | Multi-tenant scenarios on AI Agent platforms that provide independent, isolated Workspaces for many end users, such as for Agent session persistence, user-level sandboxes, and Notebook environments. | I/O-intensive workloads that require high throughput, high IOPS, and massive numbers of files. Examples include high-performance computing (HPC), AI training, autonomous driving, genetic computing, film and television rendering, EDA simulation, oil and gas exploration, and weather analysis. | Suitable for intelligent computing scenarios such as AIGC and autonomous driving. This file system can be used only with Container Compute Service (ACS), PAI Lingjun resources, PAI general computing resources, and PAI Lingjun resources (single-tenant). Access from ECS instances is not supported. | ||||
Features | Protocols & clients |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ||
Capacity | 0 to 10 PiB | 0 to 1 PiB | 0 to 1 PiB | 100 GiB to 256 TiB |
| 3.6 TiB to 1 PiB | 3.6 TiB to 1 PiB | 10 TiB to 1 PiB | |||
Maximum number of files | 1 billion | 1 billion | 1 billion | 500 million |
|
|
| 10 billion | |||
Performance | Average 4 KB single-stream read latency | 10 ms | 2 ms | 2 ms |
|
| 0.6 ms | 0.4 ms | 0.25 ms | ||
Average 4 KB single-stream write latency | 10 ms | 2 ms | 2 ms |
|
| 0.8 ms | 0.6 ms | 0.6 ms | |||
Throughput (peak) |
|
|
|
| Peak throughput per AgenticSpace:
| Read + Write 20 GB/s To increase the throughput capacity, submit a ticket. |
| ||||
Maximum IOPS | 15,000 | 30,000 | 30,000 | 200,000 | Maximum IOPS per AgenticSpace: 30,000 | 1,500,000 | 2,800,000 |
| |||
Elasticity | Elastic scale-in | Supported | Supported | Supported | Not supported | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | ||
Elastic scale-out | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported | |||
Scaling method | Automatic scaling | Automatic scaling | Automatic scaling | Manual scaling | Automatic scaling | Manual scaling | Manual scaling | Manual scaling | |||
Scaling step size | 4 KiB | 4 KiB | 4 KiB | 1 GiB | 4 KiB |
| 10 TiB You can create a file system of up to 5 PiB. If needed, please submit a ticket to apply. | ||||
Security | Server-side encryption | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported | Not supported | Supported | Supported | Not supported | ||
Encryption in transit | Supported | Supported | Supported | Not supported | Supported | Supported | Supported | Not supported | |||
AD domain control (SMB) | Supported | Supported | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | |||
ACL-based access control | Supported | Supported | Supported | Not supported | Supported | Supported | Supported | Not supported | |||
Stability | Quotas | NFS | Supported | Supported | Supported | Not supported | Supports quotas at the AgenticSpace level | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | |
SMB | Supported | Supported | Supported | ||||||||
Subdirectory mounting | NFS | Supported | Supported | Supported | Not supported | Achieves multi-tenant data isolation using AgenticSpace endpoints | Supported | Supported | Not supported | ||
SMB | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | ||||
Recycle bin | Supported | Supported | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | |||
Lifecycle | Supported | Supported | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | |||
Backup | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported | Not supported | Supported | Supported | Supported | |||
Snapshots | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported |
| Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | |||
Locally redundant storage | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported | |||
Zone-redundant storage (Multi-AZ) | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | |||
Cost | Pay-as-you-go | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported | ||
Resource plans | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported | Not supported | Supported | Supported | Supported | |||
SCU | Supported | Not supported | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | |||
Storage plans | New purchases not supported | Not supported | New purchases not supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | |||
Subscription | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | New purchases not supported | Not supported | New purchases not supported | New purchases not supported | Not supported | |||
For the latest prices in the Chinese mainland and other regions, see File Storage Pricing.