One embodiment of a method for provisioning a new virtual machine instance based on the content of an image of the new virtual machine instance includes identifying, from among a plurality of host machines, the host machine having the highest percentage of the content available in local storage, and provisioning the new virtual machine instance on the host machine having the highest percentage of the content available in local storage. Another embodiment of a method for provisioning a new virtual machine instance based on an image of the new virtual machine instance includes constructing at least a portion of the image using data stored locally on a target machine hosting the new virtual machine instance, and completing the image using data obtained over a network from remote storage.