Table of contents:

Google cloud storage is a storage solution for virtually any type of data. Cloud storage is used to store both live and archival data and has guarantees of scalability (can store data of any size), consistency (the most updated version is served on request), durability (data is redundantly placed in separate geographic locations to eliminate loss), and high-availability (data is always available and accessible).

Let’s take a brief tour through spinning and cleaning-up a storage bucket, as well as uploading to and deleting files (also called objects) from a cloud storage bucket.

Create a bucket

A bucket is as the name implies, simply a container for storing data. A bucket is first created, before storing data in Google cloud storage.

To create a bucket,

  1. Head over to the cloud storage dashboard and click ‘create bucket’.
  2. Give the bucket a unique name.
  3. Select a ‘bucket’ storage class. A multi-region storage class is for buckets frequently accessed all over the world, whereas, the cold line storage is more or less for storing backup files. For now, the default selection is okay.
  4. Click create to set-up a bucket on Google Cloud Storage.
Figure 1: Cloud Storage Console
Figure 2: Create a bucket

Uploading data to a bucket

Individual files or a complete folder can be uploaded into the bucket. As an example, let’s upload a file from the local machine.

To upload a file to a cloud storage bucket on GCP,

  1. Click ‘upload file’.
  2. Select the file from the file upload window, and click open.
Figure 3: An Empty Bucket
Figure 4: Upload an object
Figure 5: Upload successful

Delete objects from a bucket

Click the check-box beside the file and click delete, to delete an object from a bucket.

Figure 6: Delete a file

Free up storage resource

To delete a bucket, or free-up a storage resource to prevent billing on a resource that is not used, click the check-box beside the bucket in question, and click delete to remove the bucket and its contents. This action is not recoverable.

Figure 7: Select bucket to delete
Figure 8: Delete bucket