Google Cloud Storage enables the retrieving of any quantity of data from anywhere in the world at any time. It provides a straightforward programming interface that enables developers to leverage Google’s own dependable and fast networking infrastructure to perform secure and cost-effective data operations. If the need for expansion arises, developers can leverage Google’s infrastructure’s scalability. Google Cloud Storage is a component of a tech stack’s Cloud Storage category.
Google is establishing a solid reputation as a Cloud Storage Provider. Additionally, its expanding cloud service portfolio is catching up with the AWS ecosystem, which appeared unbeatable not long ago. It makes sense to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of its storage service and compare it to other industry leaders such as Backblaze B2 and Amazon S3.
Google Cloud Storage is a component of the Google Cloud Platform, positioned as a rival to Amazon S3 and Amazon Web Services (AWS) and other market leaders such as Microsoft. It is a platform for developing and deploying modern web applications.
Google Cloud is a cloud computing platform aimed at businesses of all kinds. It provides object storage with no constraints on the amount of data kept or the size of objects. Google’s service offers minimal latency and excellent durability, and users can store the data in multiple places worldwide. Additionally, it is accessible via the command prompt or a web browser.
Description of the Service
The Google Cloud Platform provides object storage for various needs and price points, block storage for virtual machines, file storage for applications that require a shared filesystem, managed MySQL and NoSQL databases, and preservation storage.
Persistent Disk (block), Google Cloud Storage (GCS), and Transfer Appliance are all Google-specific storage services (data transport).
Google Cloud Storage Locations
Google provides storage services from numerous locations in the United States and has operations in Belgium, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.
GCP has added regions in Montreal, Los Angeles, Netherlands, Sao Paulo, FrankfurtMumbai, Sydney, Northern Virginia, and London within the last year or two. It is accessible in the following languages: English, German, Italian, Dutch, French, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, and Thai.
Data Transfer
Google Cloud provides customers with a variety of options for efficiently transferring data. They include online, offline, and transfer services optimized for cloud migration (AWS to GCP) and data migration from SaaS applications to Google Cloud Bigquery for analysis.
Google Cloud Storage Performance
You can get 25K IOPS per volume with Google Cloud Persistent Disk. All data, regardless of storage class, is accessible in milliseconds (hot, cool, or archival).
Storage Administration
Google Cloud provides a variety of administration and management capabilities. Stackdriver keeps an eye on your Cloud Storage usage. Object Lifecycle Management (OLM) enables common use cases such as defining an object’s Time to Live (TTL), archiving previous models of objects, and downgrading the storage class of objects to help manage costs.
Google Cloud Storage Benefits
- Excellent documentation. We’re talking hundreds of pages here, including a fairly comprehensive API Reference guide.
- Reasonable prices, Around 0.020 USD per gigabyte per month for the Regional class and 0,007 USD per gigabyte per month for the Coldline class
- Different storage classes are available for different requirements: regional (frequent use), Kennedy (infrequent use), and cold line (long-term storage)
- Extremely durable. Google Cloud Storage ensures the durability of objects to 99.999999999 percent (11 9’s) over the course of a year. This means that data is preserved even if two disks fail simultaneously.
- Numerous regions are available for storing your data: Americas, North, South, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
- Integrate easily with other Google Cloud Platform services such as Kubernetes Engine, App Engine, or Compute Engine.
- The “Console” tab in the documentation enables you to test various SDKs for free. It’s extremely beneficial for developers.
- You can receive a $300 credit to get started with any GCP product during the first year. Following that, you’ll have access to an unlimited amount of storage (5 GB).
What other Cloud Services does Google offer?
To help explain what Google Cloud storage is, it’s helpful to discuss Google’s other cloud services to differentiate them briefly.
When you sign up for a Google account for the first time, you automatically receive 15GB of storage for free. That Google cloud storage can be used with Google Drive, which is solely for storage; Gmail, which is primarily used for email and stores attachments; or Google Photos, which is used to store, share and edit photos and videos.
When you discover that you require additional storage, you can upgrade to a Google One account. There are three subscription options available, depending on the amount of data you need to store. The starter plan includes 100GB of storage and costs $1.99 per month (or $19.99 per year), while the 200GB plan costs $2.99 per month, and the 2TB plan costs $9.99 per month.
Additionally, paid Google One plans to include additional benefits such as access to Google specialists and extending members to your plan. You also receive store credit for Google Store purchases with the higher two plans.
Google Workspace is compatible with Google One, but it is geared toward businesses and organizations with a high user count. It includes Google Drive, Gmail, Google Photos, and a broader range of Google apps, such as Calendar, Meet, Slides, and Forms.
Google Workspace pricing begins at $6 per user per month for 30GB of storage and increases to $18 per month for 5TB. It’s more costly than Google One, but you get more apps and more control over each user’s permissions.
Google Cloud is also primarily aimed at businesses, but it serves a different purpose than Google Workspace and Google One, as we’ll discuss next.
Google Cloud Storage: Final Remarks
Google Cloud Storage provides flexible, low-cost data storage choices for businesses of all sizes, especially those that use modern web application models and require efficient and cost-effective deployment methods.
It offers a range of data storage classes to suit a variety of use cases and the tools necessary to move your data between them automatically and seamlessly as use cases or criteria change – ensuring that your business gets the most value from the service.
Check out: Web 3.0 storage: Intro & How to Mount as a Folder on Windows