Bucket locations

This page explains the concept of bucket location and the different locations where you can create buckets. A bucket's location defines the physical place where object data in the bucket resides.

To learn how to set the location for your bucket, see Create buckets.

Key concepts

  • You set a geographic location for storing your object data when you create a bucket.

  • You can select from the following location types:

    • A region is a specific geographic place, such as Iowa (US-CENTRAL1).

    • A zone is a specific area within a region, such as US-CENTRAL1-A. This location type is only available with Rapid Bucket.

    • A dual-region is a specific pair of regions, such as Tokyo and Osaka (ASIA1).

    • A multi-region is a large geographic area that contains two or more geographic regions, such as the United States (US).

  • The location type determines how your data is replicated and priced.

  • Cloud Storage stores object data in the selected location in accordance with the Service Specific Terms.

  • The location information for a bucket is part of the bucket's metadata, which you can view if you have permission to do so.

Location considerations

When you choose the location for a Cloud Storage bucket, consider the differences in availability, and price, as shown in the following table.

Zone Region Dual-region Multi-region
Availability
  • Data redundancy within one availability zone
  • Zonal outages might affect availability
  • Data redundancy across availability zones (synchronous)
  • RTO(recovery time objective)=0: automated failover and failback on zonal failure (no need to change storage paths)
  • Higher availability than regions for a given storage class
  • Data redundancy across regions (asynchronous)
  • Turbo replication option for replication within 15 minutes
  • RTO(recovery time objective)=0: automated failover and failback on regional failure (no need to change storage paths)
  • Higher availability than regions for a given storage class
  • Data redundancy across regions (asynchronous)
  • RTO(recovery time objective)=0: automated failover and failback on regional failure (no need to change storage paths)
Pricing
  • Offers the highest performance in Cloud Storage for demanding workloads at the highest storage price, out of all location types
  • Zonal bucket-specific data transfer charges apply. For more information, see Cloud Storage pricing.
  • Lowest storage price
  • No replication charges
  • No outbound data transfer charges when reading data inside the same region
  • Highest storage price
  • Replication charges apply on write
  • No outbound data transfer charges when reading data within either region
  • Higher storage price than regions, but lower than dual-regions
  • Replication charges apply on write
  • Outbound data transfer charges always apply when reading data

Location recommendations

Requirements Recommended bucket location Workload examples
  • Ultra-low latency
  • Ultra-high bandwidth and I/O
  • High performance
 Zone1
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)
  • High-performance computing
  • Data-intensive analytics
  • Optimized latency and bandwidth
  • Lowest data storage cost
  • Cross-zone redundancy
 Region2
  • Analytics
  • Backup and archive
  • Optimized latency and bandwidth
  • Cross-region redundancy, with precise control of the locations where copies of data are stored
 Dual-region3
  • Analytics
  • Backup and archive
  • Disaster recovery
  • Cross-geography data access
  • Cross-region redundancy
 Multi-region
  • Content serving
  1. Zonal locations for buckets are only available through Rapid Bucket.
  2. For more information about region-specific considerations, see Geography and regions.
  3. If you need a short and predictable recovery point objective (RPO), enable the premium turbo replication feature.
  • To maximize performance and lower the latency between requests and responses, colocate your stored data in the same zone as the compute resources accessing your data. To store data in zones, use Rapid Bucket.
  • To withstand the risk of losing data within an individual zone, use regions or dual-regions.
  • To avoid data replication charges, store short-lived datasets in regions.

  • For moderate performance and ad hoc analytics workloads, multi-region storage can be a cost-effective choice.

    Note that the performance of workloads that use data in a multi-region bucket might vary over time because storage and compute aren't colocated. When a multi-region workload has strict performance requirements, consider enabling Rapid Cache.

  • See the data storage pricing table for storage costs in each location.

Compute Engine VM notes

Storing data in the same zone or region as your Compute Engine VM instances can provide better performance. This advantage applies to zones, regions, and dual-regions.

Available locations

The following sections list the Cloud Storage locations available for storing your data.

Zones

A zone is an isolated deployment area within a region.

The following zones are available for zonal buckets:

Region Zone Name Zone Description
ASIA-SOUTHEAST1
ASIA-SOUTHEAST1-A Jurong West, Singapore, APAC
ASIA-SOUTHEAST1-B Jurong West, Singapore, APAC
ASIA-SOUTHEAST1-C Jurong West, Singapore, APAC
EUROPE-WEST1
EUROPE-WEST1-B St. Ghislain, Belgium, Europe
EUROPE-WEST1-C St. Ghislain, Belgium, Europe
EUROPE-WEST1-D St. Ghislain, Belgium, Europe
US-CENTRAL1
US-CENTRAL1-A Council Bluffs, Iowa, North America
US-CENTRAL1-AI1A Lincoln, Nebraska, North America (AI zone)
US-CENTRAL1-B Council Bluffs, Iowa, North America
US-CENTRAL1-C Council Bluffs, Iowa, North America
US-CENTRAL1-F Council Bluffs, Iowa, North America
US-EAST1
US-EAST1-B Moncks Corner, South Carolina, North America
US-EAST1-D Moncks Corner, South Carolina, North America
US-EAST4
US-EAST4-A Ashburn, Virginia, North America
US-EAST4-B Ashburn, Virginia, North America
US-EAST4-C Ashburn, Virginia, North America
US-EAST5
US-EAST5-A Columbus, Ohio, North America
US-EAST5-B Columbus, Ohio, North America
US-EAST5-C Columbus, Ohio, North America
US-SOUTH1
US-SOUTH1-A Dallas, Texas, North America
US-SOUTH1-B Dallas, Texas, North America
US-SOUTH1-C Dallas, Texas, North America
US-WEST4
US-WEST4-A Las Vegas, Nevada, North America
US-WEST4-B Las Vegas, Nevada, North America