A default storage billing dataset for new datasets in BigQuery can now be set at the organization or project level.

Storage Billing Options

BigQuery offers two storage billing options:

• Physical Storage Billing: Costs $0.04 per GB per month for active storage and $0.02 for long-term storage.
• Logical Storage Billing: Costs $0.02 per GB per month for active storage and $0.01 for long-term storage.

Cost Comparison

• Physical Storage: Calculated based on physical bytes and includes time travel storage.
• Logical Storage: Calculated based on logical bytes.

Savings Potential

For highly compressible tables, such as Google Analytics 4 exports, physical storage can result in significant savings:

• Example: A 15x compression rate can lead to up to 86.7% cost savings compared to logical storage.

Implementation

With the update, you can preset storage billing to physical at the organization or project level, simplifying the process for new datasets.

For optimal cost efficiency, regularly monitor datasets and choose the appropriate storage billing option for each dataset individually.