diff --git a/_support/benchmarking/.gitignore b/_support/benchmarking/.gitignore
index 7b1864e6511e6068c1b0df00f47290796e70f369..7d6f92c819f64f1e248e4d8f5f1835c38484e535 100644
--- a/_support/benchmarking/.gitignore
+++ b/_support/benchmarking/.gitignore
@@ -2,6 +2,9 @@
 /terraform/*
 !/terraform/main.tf
 !/terraform/locals.tf
+/terraform-prepare/*
+!/terraform-prepare/main.tf
+!/terraform-prepare/locals.tf
 /group_vars/all.yml
 /results/*
 config.yml
diff --git a/_support/benchmarking/.tool-versions b/_support/benchmarking/.tool-versions
index db57b0f1554387ed0087fa1f9469d59a3f70d376..b9911e7b29d0b2e3a161c75d6af51239b1872068 100644
--- a/_support/benchmarking/.tool-versions
+++ b/_support/benchmarking/.tool-versions
@@ -1,2 +1,2 @@
-terraform 1.3.9
-python 3.11.2
+terraform 1.12.2
+python 3.13.5
diff --git a/_support/benchmarking/config.yml.example b/_support/benchmarking/config.yml.example
index 30ba48f2ec00267f167fb2ce1a768602d6b08f14..92a241799b813fb7dc5635b03b6a570c13ad0915 100644
--- a/_support/benchmarking/config.yml.example
+++ b/_support/benchmarking/config.yml.example
@@ -13,3 +13,11 @@ benchmark_zone: "us-central1-a"
 use_regional_disk: false
 # One of these zones must be the zone for benchmark_zone
 regional_disk_replica_zones: ["us-central1-a", "us-central1-b"]
+
+# The list of repositories which will be cloned into Gitaly's storage disk.
+repositories:
+  - "https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/git.git"
+  - "https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab"
+  - "https://gitlab.com/linux-kernel/linux.git"
+  - "https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core.git"
+  - "https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src"
diff --git a/_support/benchmarking/requirements.txt b/_support/benchmarking/requirements.txt
index 07d2c59e2081452582b438ab7e253a8af217c0dc..566d2dddd3e2e0ade6875f18901966e693623404 100644
--- a/_support/benchmarking/requirements.txt
+++ b/_support/benchmarking/requirements.txt
@@ -1,10 +1,10 @@
-ansible==7.2.0
-ansible-core==2.14.2
-cffi==1.15.1
+ansible==11.8.0
+ansible-core==2.18.7
+cffi==1.17.1
 cryptography==39.0.1
 Jinja2==3.1.2
 MarkupSafe==2.1.2
 packaging==23.0
 pycparser==2.21
-PyYAML==6.0
+PyYAML==6.0.2
 resolvelib==0.8.1
diff --git a/_support/benchmarking/roles/gitaly/tasks/setup_gitlab_shell.yml b/_support/benchmarking/roles/gitaly/tasks/setup_gitlab_shell.yml
index 21143a729b79862a296f0757e6873257109ecd7c..3b752ccd88dff2e01475390293fbb4d3d203ac08 100644
--- a/_support/benchmarking/roles/gitaly/tasks/setup_gitlab_shell.yml
+++ b/_support/benchmarking/roles/gitaly/tasks/setup_gitlab_shell.yml
@@ -41,6 +41,7 @@
     chdir: /src/gitlab-shell
   environment:
     PATH: '/usr/local/go/bin:{{ ansible_env.PATH }}'
+  become_user: git
 
 - name: Create gitlab-shell secret
   file:
diff --git a/_support/benchmarking/setup-repositories.sh b/_support/benchmarking/setup-repositories.sh
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..0db5ff942a67536ead0e27232bb8bd222d778a15
--- /dev/null
+++ b/_support/benchmarking/setup-repositories.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+# This script is templated and will be executed when creating the
+# `repository-setup-vm` Terraform resource.
+
+set -euxo pipefail
+
+disk_name="/dev/disk/by-id/google-repositories"
+mountpoint="/mnt/disks/repositories"
+
+# Disks mounted to a GCP VM are prefixed with "google-"
+# https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/disks/format-mount-disk-linux#format_linux
+#
+# TODO make this configurable so we can test other filesystems, like btrfs.
+mkfs.ext4 -m 0 -E lazy_itable_init=0,lazy_journal_init=0,discard "$${disk_name}"
+mkdir -p "$${mountpoint}"
+mount -o discard,defaults "$${disk_name}" "$${mountpoint}"
+chmod a+w "$${mountpoint}"
+
+echo "repositories disk successfully mounted as an ext4 volume at $${mountpoint}}"
+
+cd "$${mountpoint}"
+
+%{for repo_url in repositories}
+if ! git clone --bare "${repo_url}"; then
+echo "WARNING: Failed to clone ${repo_url}, continuing with other repositories" >&2
+fi
+%{endfor}
+
+shutdown -h now
diff --git a/_support/benchmarking/terraform/main.tf b/_support/benchmarking/terraform/main.tf
index 2dc528600031c94516df4308dbb3acf9d61be229..7103feafe58c035fb3020b0559dbd0a1d54a4922 100644
--- a/_support/benchmarking/terraform/main.tf
+++ b/_support/benchmarking/terraform/main.tf
@@ -13,15 +13,77 @@ provider "google" {
   zone    = local.config.benchmark_zone
 }
 
-data "google_compute_disk" "repository-disk" {
-  name    = "git-repos"
-  project = local.config.project
+# Temporary disk from which we create the `git-repositories-<hash>` disk image from.
+resource "google_compute_disk" "prepare_repos" {
+  name = format("%s-prepare-repos-disk", var.gitaly_benchmarking_instance_name)
+  type = "pd-standard"
+  size = 100
+}
+
+# Temporary VM which clones and prepares the `git-repositories-<hash>` disk.
+resource "google_compute_instance" "prepare_repos" {
+  name         = format("%s-prepare-repos-vm", var.gitaly_benchmarking_instance_name)
+  machine_type = "n2d-standard-2"
+  zone         = local.config.benchmark_zone
+
+  boot_disk {
+    initialize_params {
+      image = local.config.os_image
+    }
+  }
+
+  attached_disk {
+    source      = google_compute_disk.prepare_repos.self_link
+    device_name = "repositories"
+  }
+
+  network_interface {
+    network = "default"
+    access_config {}
+  }
+
+  # If the script fails, you can SSH into the VM manually to debug the script:
+  # https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/startup-scripts/linux
+  metadata = {
+    startup-script = templatefile("${path.module}/../setup-repositories.sh", {
+      repositories = local.config.repositories
+    })
+  }
+}
+
+# Waits for the temporary setup VM to shut down, signalling the repos have been cloned.
+resource "null_resource" "prepare_repos_wait" {
+  provisioner "local-exec" {
+    command = <<-EOF
+      timeout 7200 bash -c '
+        while true; do
+          STATUS=$(gcloud compute instances describe ${google_compute_instance.prepare_repos.name} \
+            --zone=${google_compute_instance.prepare_repos.zone} \
+            --format="value(status)" \
+            --project=${local.config.project})
+          if [ "$STATUS" = "TERMINATED" ]; then
+            break
+          fi
+          sleep 30
+        done
+      '
+    EOF
+  }
+
+  depends_on = [google_compute_instance.prepare_repos]
+}
+
+resource "google_compute_image" "repos" {
+  name        = "git-repos"
+  source_disk = google_compute_disk.prepare_repos.self_link
+
+  depends_on = [null_resource.prepare_repos_wait]
 }
 
 resource "google_compute_disk" "repository-disk" {
   name  = format("%s-repository-disk", var.gitaly_benchmarking_instance_name)
   type  = local.config.repository_disk_type
-  image = format("projects/%s/global/images/git-repositories", local.config.project)
+  image = google_compute_image.repos.self_link
 }
 
 resource "google_compute_region_disk" "repository-region-disk" {
@@ -69,10 +131,6 @@ resource "google_compute_instance" "gitaly" {
   }
 
   tags = ["gitaly"]
-
-  lifecycle {
-    ignore_changes = [attached_disk]
-  }
 }
 
 resource "google_compute_instance" "client" {