When your Cloud PC shows "Fast Start", it means that it is still stored on a GPU server in the selected region, and can be quickly started in under 60 seconds. (10-60 seconds).
Cloud PCs which are stored in popular regions and/or have not been used recently may be moved off of a server with a GPU to a more affordable storage cluster to help save stim.io money. When your Cloud PC is on our storage cluster (not a GPU server), you will see "Slow Start" on the Cloud PC.
Stim uses an in-house developed "migration Ai" which decides when to auto-migrate your Cloud PC off of our GPU servers (to save stim money) based on your usage data and when it predicts you will use your Cloud PC next. The more you use your Cloud PC in the same selected region, the more you should see "Fast Start" for that specific Cloud PC in that region.
Clicking "Slow Start" will migrate your Cloud PC from the storage cluster to a GPU server capable of starting your Cloud PC. This copy/migration can take up to a maximum of 15 minutes, depending on how much storage you have used. Drives up to 256GB are copied in parallel.
For example, slow starting a Cloud PC which has used 256GB would take the same 15 minutes as slow starting a Cloud PC which has used 1TB, as 1TB is broken down into 4x 256GB drives which are loaded in parallel (at the same time), taking 15 minutes total whether it is 256GB used or 1TB used. Slow starting a Cloud PC with 128GB used should take around 7 minutes in most regions.
As Stim's storage migration Ai learns and as we add more GPU servers, you should see "Fast Start" more and more frequently. Slow Start will slowly become a thing of the past.
In the meantime, we appreciate customers bearing with us as we face these growing pains.