How to Choose Between CFS and PFS
Updated at：2025-11-11
The Baidu AI Cloud File System (CFS) and Parallel Filesystem Service (PFS) offer various file system options. This document compares CFS and PFS in terms of specifications, billing, performance, functionality, protocols/APIs, usage restrictions, and application scenarios to help you choose the most appropriate file system for your business needs.
| Category | Cloud File System (CFS) | Parallel Filesystem Service (PFS) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overview | A NAS-like cloud storage product that supports standard file access protocols (NFS and SMB) and is primarily used in data sharing and access scenarios. | A high-performance file storage service offering a private client and supporting the POSIX file API. It is mainly designed for high-demand scenarios like AI training and high-performance computing (HPC). | |||||
| Specification | Capacity-optimized | Performance-optimized | Extreme L2 | Standard | Enhanced | Extreme | |
| Charge | Monthly unit price (30-day example) |
RMB 0.35/GB/month | RMB 1.8/GB/month | RMB 1.45/GB/month | RMB 0.83/GB/month | RMB 1.4/GB/month | RMB 1.45/GB/month |
| For detailed CFS pricing and billing rules, see: Cloud File System (CFS) Product Pricing Page. For detailed PFS pricing and billing rules, see: Parallel Filesystem Service (PFS) Product Pricing Page | |||||||
| Metering type | Serverless: Billed strictly by usage, with elastic scaling (both up and down) | Managed: Requires minimum initial capacity and scaling step; billed by purchased capacity; only supports scaling up, not scaling down | |||||
| Initial capacity & scaling step | No requirements; maximum capacity is 100 PB | Initial capacity: 50 TB; Scaling step: 1 TB ; Maximum capacity: 5 PB |
Initial capacity: 7 TB; Scaling step: 7 TB ; Maximum capacity: 200 TB |
Initial capacity: 7 TB; Scaling step: 3.5 TB ; Maximum capacity: 100 TB |
Initial capacity: 50 TB; Scaling step: 1 TB ; Maximum capacity: 1 PB |
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| Performance | Maximum throughput | Scale linearly with storage usage, up to 10 GB/s. For details, see CFS Product Specifications |
Scale linearly with storage usage, up to 40 GB/s. For details, see CFS Product Specifications |
Scale linearly with storage purchased capacity (230 MBps/TB), up to 1.1 TB/s. For details, see PFS Product Specifications |
Scale linearly with storage purchased capacity (100 MBps/TB), up to 20 GB/s. For details, see PFS Product Specifications |
Scale linearly with storage purchased capacity (200 MBps/TB), up to 20 GB/s. For details, see PFS Product Specifications |
Scale linearly with storage purchased capacity (230 MBps/TB), up to 230 GB/s. For details, see PFS Product Specifications |
| Maximum IOPS | 15 K. For details, see CFS Product Specifications | Scale linearly with storage usage, up to 300,000. For details, see CFS Product Specifications | Scale linearly with storage purchased capacity (5K/TB), up to 25 million. For details, see PFS Product Specifications | Scale linearly with storage purchased capacity (15K/TB), up to 3 million. For details, see PFS Product Specifications | Scale linearly with storage purchased capacity (30 K/TB), up to 3 million. For details, see PFS Product Specifications | Scale linearly with storage purchased capacity (5K/TB), up to 5 million. For details, see PFS Product Specifications | |
| Minimum latency | 10 ms-level | ms-level | Sub-ms-level | ||||
| Function | Support backup, monitoring & alerting, permission group management, Cloud Audit, etc. | Support directory quota, directory QoS, lifecycle, data flow, mount service, monitoring & alerting, Cloud Audit, etc. | Support data flow, monitoring & alerting, Cloud Audit, etc. | ||||
| Protocol/API | NFS 4.1 (supports Linux); SMB 1, SMB 2, and SMB 3 (supports Windows) |
POSIX (supporting Linux), MPI-IO (supporting Linux) |
POSIX (supports Linux) | ||||
| Usage restrictions | See CFS Usage Limits | See Usage Limits (Extreme L2) | See Usage Limits (Standard, Enhanced, Extreme) | ||||
| Applicable scenarios | Perfect for compute-intensive services demanding large capacity and high throughput but without stringent latency requirements. It provides a cost-effective solution for most file-sharing services with less frequent read/write operations. | Designed for file-sharing storage services that require high throughput, elastic business scaling, and relatively high latency performance. It delivers excellent performance for workloads with frequent read/write operations and stringent system response requirements. | Suitable for AI training & inference, autonomous driving, high-performance computing, video rendering, etc. For detailed introduction, see PFS Application Scenarios. | ||||
For more product introductions and operations, see: Cloud File System (CFS) and Parallel Filesystem Service (PFS)