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Google Cloud Storage is a fully managed, globally available object storage service. It stores any amount of data — from a single file to petabytes — and makes it accessible from anywhere in the world. Cloud Storage underpins many GCP services and is the go-to solution for unstructured data such as images, videos, backups, logs, and data lake content.
Object storage organises data as discrete units called objects. Each object contains:
Unlike block storage (persistent disks) or file storage (Filestore), object storage has a flat namespace — there are no real directories, although you can use prefixes (e.g., logs/2024/jan/) to simulate a folder structure.
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| Durability | 99.999999999% (eleven 9s) — data is redundantly stored across multiple facilities |
| Availability | 99.95% for Standard in multi-region; varies by class and location |
| Scalability | Virtually unlimited — no need to provision capacity |
| Global namespace | Bucket names are globally unique across all of GCP |
| Maximum object size | 5 TB per object |
| Pay-as-you-go | Charged for storage, operations, and egress (no upfront commitment) |
| Immutable objects | Once uploaded, an object cannot be modified in place — you upload a new version |
Cloud Storage integrates deeply with other GCP services:
| Service | Integration |
|---|---|
| BigQuery | Query data directly in Cloud Storage using external tables or BigLake |
| Dataflow / Dataproc | Read and write data during ETL or analytics pipelines |
| Cloud Functions / Cloud Run | Trigger serverless functions on object upload events |
| Compute Engine | Store VM images, startup scripts, and application data |
| AI/ML (Vertex AI) | Store training datasets and model artefacts |
| Backup & DR | Archive database backups and disaster recovery snapshots |
| Cloud CDN | Serve static content from edge locations worldwide |
| Service | Type | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Cloud Storage | Object | Unstructured data, backups, media, data lakes |
| Persistent Disk | Block | VM boot and data disks |
| Filestore | File (NFS) | Shared file systems for VMs and GKE |
| Cloud SQL / Spanner | Relational DB | Structured transactional data |
| Firestore / Bigtable | NoSQL | Document or wide-column data |
Cloud Storage pricing has three main components:
Charged per GB per month, varying by storage class and location:
| Class | Approximate Cost (US multi-region) |
|---|---|
| Standard | ~$0.026/GB/month |
| Nearline | ~$0.010/GB/month |
| Coldline | ~$0.004/GB/month |
| Archive | ~$0.0012/GB/month |
Charged per 10,000 operations. Class A operations (writes, lists) cost more than Class B operations (reads, metadata).
Google offers 5 GB-months of Standard storage in US regions, 5,000 Class A operations, and 50,000 Class B operations per month for free.
# Create a bucket
gsutil mb -l europe-west2 gs://my-company-data-bucket
# Upload a file
gsutil cp report.pdf gs://my-company-data-bucket/reports/
# List objects
gsutil ls gs://my-company-data-bucket/reports/
# Download a file
gsutil cp gs://my-company-data-bucket/reports/report.pdf ./
# Delete a file
gsutil rm gs://my-company-data-bucket/reports/report.pdf
All data in Cloud Storage is encrypted at rest by default using AES-256 with Google-managed encryption keys. You can also use Customer-Managed Encryption Keys (CMEK) via Cloud KMS or Customer-Supplied Encryption Keys (CSEK) for maximum control.
Data in transit is protected with TLS 1.2 or 1.3.
Google Cloud Storage is a highly durable, globally available object storage service that integrates with virtually every GCP service. It supports multiple storage classes for different access patterns, provides eleven-nines durability, and offers pay-as-you-go pricing. All data is encrypted at rest and in transit. In the next lesson, we will explore the four storage classes in detail and learn when to use each one.