I'm building an app that needs low-latency shared storage, what should I choose?

For low-latency shared storage, the best choice usually depends on whether you need block, file, or object access—but in general:

Best default choice

NVMe-over-Fabrics (NVMe-oF)

• Lowest latency among shared storage options
• Good for performance-sensitive apps, databases, and virtualized workloads
• Works over RDMA, RoCE, or TCP

If you need file sharing

Distributed file systems like:

• Lustre
• BeeGFS
• CephFS
• NFS over a very fast network (simpler, but typically higher latency)

If you need simplicity and broad compatibility

NFS

• Easy to deploy and use
• Shared across multiple machines
• Usually not the best for ultra-low latency

If you need object storage

S3-compatible object storage

• Great for durability and scale
• Not ideal for low-latency shared access

Practical recommendation

• Databases / VM disks / latency-critical apps: NVMe-oF
• Shared directories / collaborative file access: BeeGFS or Lustre
• General-purpose and easy setup: NFS
• Large-scale durable storage: Ceph (better for scale than latency)

If you want, I can recommend a specific option based on:

1. your workload,
2. number of clients,
3. read/write pattern,
4. network type (Ethernet, InfiniBand, RDMA).