Professional Cloud ArchitectDesign and plan a cloud solution architectureEasy
A media company needs to store a vast archive of video files (hundreds of petabytes) that are accessed very infrequently, perhaps once a year for compliance audits or rare content requests. The primary concern is minimizing storage costs while ensuring long-term durability. Which Google Cloud Storage class is most appropriate?
- ACloud Storage Archive
- BCloud Storage Standard
- CCloud Storage Coldline
- DCloud Storage Nearline
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: A. Cloud Storage Archive
Cloud Storage Archive is designed for long-term data archiving with very infrequent access (less than once a year). It offers the lowest storage cost, making it ideal for hundreds of petabytes of rarely accessed video archives.
Why the other options are wrong
- B. Standard storage is for frequently accessed data and would be too expensive for this use case.
- C. Coldline storage is for data accessed less than once a quarter, also not infrequent enough.
- D. Nearline storage is for data accessed less than once a month, which is still too frequent for this scenario.
Cloud Storage Archive
A Google Cloud Storage class optimized for long-term data archiving with very infrequent access (less than once a year) at the lowest storage cost.
- Lowest storage costs among all classes
- Designed for data accessed less than once a year
- Higher data retrieval costs and latency compared to other classes
- Ideal for compliance archives, long-term backups
Memory trick: Archive is for archives, rarely seen, lowest fee.