> This means that the average latency of disk operations (from the perspective of the operating system) can be on the order of a couple milliseconds, compared t

> This means that the average latency of disk operations (from the perspective of the operating system) can be on the order of a couple milliseconds, compared to half a millisecond for directly-attached disks. While I don't know if Google offers fast storage, 0,5ms is slow compared to faster drives. 0,015ms is more around a realistic latency for faster drives with a high queue depth. > We also lose the ability to create point-in-time snapshots of an entire disk, which is critical for certain workflows at Discord (like some data backups). No you don't. There are multiple filesystems to choose from that support snapshots for free. Zfs is awesome. Also, if each database has up to 1TB data and reads are the important part, why not use servers with enough memory to cache the data? That is the normal way to speed up databases that are read heavy.