gcloud compute instances suspend

NAME

gcloud compute instances suspend - suspend a virtual machine instance

SYNOPSIS

gcloud compute instances suspend INSTANCE_NAMES [INSTANCE_NAMES …] [--async] [--discard-local-ssd[=DISCARD_LOCAL_SSD]] [--zone=ZONE] [GCLOUD_WIDE_FLAG …]

DESCRIPTION

gcloud compute instances suspend is used to suspend a Compute Engine virtual machine. Suspending a VM is the equivalent of sleep or standby mode: the guest receives an ACPI S3 suspend signal, after which all VM state is saved to temporary storage. An instance can only be suspended while it is in the RUNNING state. A suspended instance will be put in SUSPENDED state.

Note: A suspended instance can be resumed by running the gcloud compute instances resume command.

If a VM has any attached Local SSD disks, you can preserve the Local SSD data when you suspend the VM by setting --discard-local-ssd=False. Preserving the Local SSD disk data incurs costs and is subject to limitations.

Limitations:

Limitations for suspending a VM: https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/suspend-resume-instance#limitations
Limitations for preserving Local SSD data: https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/disks/local-ssd#stop_instance

EXAMPLES

To suspend an instance named test-instance, run:

gcloud compute instances suspend test-instance

To suspend an instance named test-instance that has a Local SSD, run:

gcloud compute instances suspend test-instance --discard-local-ssd=True

Using --discard-local-ssd without a value defaults to True.

POSITIONAL ARGUMENTS

INSTANCE_NAMES [INSTANCE_NAMES …]: Names of the instances to operate on. For details on valid instance names, refer to the criteria documented under the field 'name' at: https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/reference/rest/v1/instances

FLAGS

--async

Return immediately, without waiting for the operation in progress to complete.

--discard-local-ssd[=DISCARD_LOCAL_SSD]

If set to true, local SSD data is discarded.

--zone=ZONE

Zone of the instances to operate on. If not specified, you might be prompted to select a zone (interactive mode only). gcloud attempts to identify the appropriate zone by searching for resources in your currently active project. If the zone cannot be determined, gcloud prompts you for a selection with all available Google Cloud Platform zones.

To avoid prompting when this flag is omitted, the user can set the compute/zone property:

gcloud config set compute/zone ZONE

A list of zones can be fetched by running:

gcloud compute zones list

To unset the property, run:

gcloud config unset compute/zone

Alternatively, the zone can be stored in the environment variable CLOUDSDK_COMPUTE_ZONE.

GCLOUD WIDE FLAGS

These flags are available to all commands: --access-token-file, --account, --billing-project, --configuration, --flags-file, --flatten, --format, --help, --impersonate-service-account, --log-http, --project, --quiet, --trace-token, --user-output-enabled, --verbosity.

Run $ gcloud help for details.

NOTES

These variants are also available:

gcloud alpha compute instances suspend

gcloud beta compute instances suspend

gcloud preview compute instances suspend

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Last updated 2026-05-27 UTC.