---
title: File Storage and Instances selection guidelines
description: This page explains how to provision the right file system for your Instance based on your use case.
tags: instances file sizing provisioning file system scaling
dates:
validation: 2026-07-23
posted: 2026-01-27
---
Scaleway File Storage performance (IOPS and throughput) scales linearly with your provisioned capacity. To avoid bottlenecks, you must pair your file system with Instances that matches its performance profile and supports the required number of mount points.
Refer to the [dedicated documentation](/file-storage/reference-content/performance-scaling/) for more information on performance scaling.
## Select the right file system capacity for your Instance
To optimize storage costs and avoid throttling your file system at the Instance level, refer to the use cases below to provision a file system with capacity adapted to your requirements.
### Small-scale applications and production environments
Ideal for lightweight web servers, small-scale production environments, and low-traffic repositories.
- **Provisioning range:** 25 GB to 100 GB
- **Recommended instances:** POP2-2C, BASIC3-X2C (or any 2 vCPU General Purpose Instance)
Ideal for one or two mount points to maintain a stable network baseline.
### Business applications and production environments
Ideal for medium-sized CMS web applications, application servers, corporate media file sharing, and CI/CD runner cache sharing.
- **Provisioning range:** 100 GB to 500 GB
- **Recommended instances:** POP2-4C, STANDARD3-X4C
These Instances provide the necessary network overhead to handle the increased throughput of mid-range storage.
### High-performance and data-intensive workloads
Ideal for AI/ML fine-tuning and inference, video encoding, and throughput-intensive applications.
- **Provisioning range:** Above 1 TB
- **Recommended instances:** Any GPU instance, or CPU instances with 8 cores or more.
Above 1 TB, File Storage delivers significant throughput. Only high-core count or GPU instances have the network capacity required to ingest this level of data without latency.
## File system attachments per compatible Instance type
To ensure optimum performance, the number of file systems you can attach to an Instance is limited based on the Instance's configuration.
Use the following [Scaleway CLI](/scaleway-cli/quickstart/) command to find the maximum number of file systems you can attach to a Scaleway Instance. Make sure to replace the value of the `zone` parameter with the desired Availability Zone:
```bash
scw instance server-type list zone=fr-par-2
```
Currently, only Linux-based POP2, BASIC3-X, STANDARD2-X, STANDARD3-X CPU Instances, L4, L40S, and H100 GPU Instances are fully qualified for File Storage. Other offers will be added in the future.
| NAME | CPU | GPU | RAM | ARCH | MAX FILE SYSTEMS |
|---------------------|-----|-----|---------|--------|------------------|
| BASIC3-X2C-4G | 2 | 0 | 4 GiB | x86_64 | 1 |
| BASIC3-X2C-8G | 2 | 0 | 8 GiB | x86_64 | 1 |
| BASIC3-X4C-8G | 4 | 0 | 8 GiB | x86_64 | 1 |
| STANDARD3-X2C-8G | 2 | 0 | 8 GiB | x86_64 | 1 |
| POP2-HC-2C-4G | 2 | 0 | 4 GiB | x86_64 | 1 |
| POP2-2C-8G | 2 | 0 | 8 GiB | x86_64 | 1 |
| POP2-HC-4C-8G | 4 | 0 | 8 GiB | x86_64 | 1 |
| POP2-4C-16G | 4 | 0 | 16 GiB | x86_64 | 1 |
| POP2-HM-4C-32G | 4 | 0 | 32 GiB | x86_64 | 1 |
| POP2-HN-3 | 2 | 0 | 4 GiB | x86_64 | 1 |
| POP2-HN-5 | 4 | 0 | 8 GiB | x86_64 | 1 |
| POP2-HN-10 | 4 | 0 | 8 GiB | x86_64 | 1 |
| BASIC3-X4C-16G | 4 | 0 | 16 GiB | x86_64 | 2 |
| BASIC3-X8C-16G | 8 | 0 | 16 GiB | x86_64 | 2 |
| STANDARD3-X4C-16G | 4 | 0 | 16 GiB | x86_64 | 2 |
| L4-1-24G | 8 | 1 | 48 GiB | x86_64 | 2 |
| POP2-HM-2C-16G | 2 | 0 | 16 GiB | x86_64 | 2 |
| POP2-HC-8C-16G | 8 | 0 | 16 GiB | x86_64 | 2 |
| POP2-8C-32G | 8 | 0 | 32 GiB | x86_64 | 2 |
| POP2-HM-8C-64G | 8 | 0 | 64 GiB | x86_64 | 2 |
| H100-1-80G | 24 | 1 | 240 GiB | x86_64 | 2 |
| H100-1-M | 24 | 1 | 240 GiB | x86_64 | 2 |
| L40S-1-48G | 8 | 1 | 96 GiB | x86_64 | 2 |
| L4-2-24G | 16 | 2 | 96 GiB | x86_64 | 4 |
| BASIC3-X8C-32G | 8 | 0 | 32 GiB | x86_64 | 4 |
| BASIC3-X16C-32G | 16 | 0 | 32 GiB | x86_64 | 4 |
| STANDARD3-X8C-32G | 8 | 0 | 32 GiB | x86_64 | 4 |
| STANDARD3-X16C-64G | 16 | 0 | 64 GiB | x86_64 | 4 |
| POP2-HC-16C-32G | 16 | 0 | 32 GiB | x86_64 | 4 |
| POP2-16C-64G | 16 | 0 | 64 GiB | x86_64 | 4 |
| POP2-HM-16C-128G | 16 | 0 | 128 GiB | x86_64 | 4 |
| H100-2-80G | 48 | 2 | 480 GiB | x86_64 | 4 |
| H100-SXM-2-80G | 32 | 2 | 240 GiB | x86_64 | 4 |
| H100-2-M | 48 | 2 | 480 GiB | x86_64 | 4 |
| L40S-2-48G | 16 | 2 | 192 GiB | x86_64 | 4 |
| L4-4-24G | 32 | 4 | 192 GiB | x86_64 | 8 |
| BASIC3-X16C-64G | 16 | 0 | 64 GiB | x86_64 | 8 |
| STANDARD3-X32C-128G | 32 | 0 | 128 GiB | x86_64 | 8 |
| STANDARD3-X48C-192G | 48 | 0 | 192 GiB | x86_64 | 8 |
| STANDARD3-X64C-256G | 64 | 0 | 256 GiB | x86_64 | 8 |
| POP2-HC-32C-64G | 32 | 0 | 64 GiB | x86_64 | 8 |
| POP2-32C-128G | 32 | 0 | 128 GiB | x86_64 | 8 |
| POP2-HM-32C-256G | 32 | 0 | 256 GiB | x86_64 | 8 |
| H100-SXM-4-80G | 64 | 4 | 480 GiB | x86_64 | 8 |
| L40S-4-48G | 32 | 4 | 384 GiB | x86_64 | 8 |
| POP2-HC-48C-96G | 48 | 0 | 96 GiB | x86_64 | 12 |
| POP2-48C-192G | 48 | 0 | 192 GiB | x86_64 | 12 |
| POP2-HM-48C-384G | 48 | 0 | 384 GiB | x86_64 | 12 |
| L4-8-24G | 64 | 8 | 384 GiB | x86_64 | 16 |
| POP2-HC-64C-128G | 64 | 0 | 128 GiB | x86_64 | 16 |
| POP2-64C-256G | 64 | 0 | 256 GiB | x86_64 | 16 |
| POP2-HM-64C-512G | 64 | 0 | 512 GiB | x86_64 | 16 |
| H100-SXM-8-80G | 128 | 8 | 960 GiB | x86_64 | 16 |
| L40S-8-48G | 64 | 8 | 768 GiB | x86_64 | 16 |