Why is Google FILESTORE minimum size so high at 1-Tib

[tacoma50]

Why is Google Filestore minimum size set so high at 1tb?
I'm sure many more customers would use Filestore if Google allowed a 10gb or even 100gb size.

[DamianS]

Hello @tacoma50  ,Welcome on Google Cloud Community.

Great question. The reason is behind performance and enterprise. Filestore is designed for high-performance enterprise-grade file storage. Has been build to handle large datasets or demanding workloads. It's similar to highway. If you are a builder, you will not build highway with only one lane. You will plan and build enough lane to handle potential traffic. Similar case is with Filestore.  A 1TB minimum size ensures that each instance has enough capacity and resources to deliver the performance you expect from a premium file storage service. So, while the 1TB minimum might seem high, it's a reflection of Filestore's commitment to performance and scalability. It's designed to handle demanding workloads and ensure that your data is always available when you need it.

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cheers,
DamianS
LinkedIn medium.com Cloudskillsboost

[tacoma50]

Hi DamianS,

Thank you for the insight on FileStore. Everything you said makes sense for enterprise customers.
In my opinion, Google is excluding thousands of smaller businesses who will never need enterprise size shared storage. One of the biggest reasons to run on the cloud is scalability and google has eliminated the costs savings of scalability from FileStore, leaving small businesses without a cost effective simple shared filesystem option.

[DamianS]

Yes and no. You can use GCS and FUSE to mount buckets (good storage option, relative cheap, comparing to Filestore.). You don't need to utilize Filestore then. The truth at least from my side is that Filestore is expensive, however, if you can't handle that cost or you don't want to pay for enterprise support for example, imho you are not ready for being enterprise. 

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cheers,
DamianS
LinkedIn medium.com Cloudskillsboost

[tacoma50]

HI,
I had had looked at GCS FUSE a while ago and my thoughts were that  it might not support my requirements. We need a shared filesystem that can be mounted on two separate google VMs and can handle writes from both servers.  Reading about FUSE here:    https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/gcs-fuse  it states: " Limitations
While Cloud Storage FUSE has a file system interface, it is not like an NFS or CIFS file system on the backend. Additionally, Cloud Storage FUSE is not POSIX compliant. For a POSIX file system product in Google Cloud, see Filestore.  When using Cloud Storage FUSE, be aware of its limitations and semantics, which are different than that of POSIX file systems. Cloud Storage FUSE should only be used within its capabilities."

This made me worry about the integrity of the data with both servers writing to the mounted shared volume.

[DamianS]

Ahh yes. You are right. If you need NFS-like solution, FUSE will not meet those requirements. I've wrongly assumed that you need storage option which can be mounted. Well, in this case you must use either Filestore ( which is expensive ) or tried to build NFS-like solution on GCE with SSD ( SSD for I/O performance) however due to fact that SDD disc is not persistent by default, it might be not good option ( each restart will wipe data ). 
I found option about preserve local data on SSD, but it's preview so worth to check.
https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/disks/local-ssd#stop_instance

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cheers,
DamianS
LinkedIn medium.com Cloudskillsboost

[mrmegamango]

This is literrally why I can't use filestore for 10GB readwritemany volume costing $300 a month