Embodiments of the present disclosure are directed towards techniques and configurations for an apparatus configured to provide I/O classification information in a distributed cloud storage system, in accordance with some embodiments. In one embodiment, the apparatus may include a partition scanner, to scan an image of a virtual disk associated with the storage system, to determine one or more partitions associated with the virtual disk; a file system scanner coupled with the partition scanner, to identify file systems associated with the determined partitions, to access files stored in the identified file systems; and I/O classifier coupled with the file system scanner, to generate I/O classification information associated with the accessed files. The I/O classification information provides characteristics of input-output operations performed on the virtual disk. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.