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What are 3 top Google Cloud Storage limitations?
While Google Cloud Storage has several limitations, these three are among the most prevalent -- but users have straightforward ways to get around them.
Although cloud storage might appear limitless, the truth is that nearly all cloud storage providers, including Google, have some limits.
These limitations might apply to storage consumption, data change rates, naming conventions or other aspects related to cloud storage. Each cloud provider has its unique limitations. Accordingly, Google Cloud Storage has several specific limitations, as well as workarounds for them.
The most significant one is that the maximum supported object size is 5 tebibytes (TiB). Even though most files are far smaller than 5 TiB, this limit can cause problems for anyone who needs to store a large database on Google Cloud. Users who need to place multi-tebibyte databases in the cloud might consider a managed database service as an alternative. One option is a Google Cloud MySQL instance, which supports a maximum instance size of about 30 TB.
Bucket names in Google's object storage have a notable limitation: They can't exceed 63 characters. This limitation can be problematic if an organization adheres to a strict naming convention or if descriptive bucket names need to be used. To get around the length restriction, include one or more periods as part of the bucket name, which extends the limit from 63 to 222 characters.
Google Cloud Storage limitations also include access control list (ACL) entries. Access control lists are the mechanism by which the administrator grants access to either an object or a bucket.
With storage buckets, Google limits the maximum number of principals -- usually users -- that can receive identity and access management (IAM) roles to 100. The best way to get around this limitation is to avoid using legacy IAM roles. Current generation IAM roles increase this limit to 1,500.
Google sets the limit at 100 ACLs per object when access control lists apply directly to an object. To avoid problems related to this limitation, admins should grant access to groups rather than to individual users.
The limitations described here are only a small percentage of Google's overall storage limitations. However, users can often find alternative ways to expand limits.
