Early Delete (EarlyDelete-ByteHrs)
A charge for deleting, overwriting, or moving an object before its storage class minimum duration has elapsed. You are billed as though the object had stayed for the full period. It is one of the least self-explanatory SKU names on a Google Cloud bill and one of the easiest to eliminate.
Billed: Charged for the unused remainder of a minimum storage duration, in byte-hours.
What triggers this charge
- Deleting a Nearline object before 30 days, Coldline before 90, or Archive before 365.
- A lifecycle rule that moves objects to a colder class and then deletes them shortly afterwards — the two rules interact and nobody notices.
- Overwriting an object in a cold class, which counts as a delete plus a new write.
- Re-uploading a backup with the same name daily into a cold class.
How to reduce it
Sequence lifecycle rules so transitions come after deletions
If data is deleted at 60 days, do not transition it to Coldline at 30. Either stop at Nearline or extend the retention.
Never put mutable objects in a cold class
Cold classes are for write-once data. Anything overwritten on a schedule belongs in Standard or Nearline.
Let Autoclass handle it
Autoclass transitions do not incur early-delete charges, which removes this entire failure mode.
Rates
Related charges
Now find out how much of this you are actually paying.
Finitizer breaks your Google Cloud bill down to the SKU, shows how each one has moved since last week, and separates rate changes from usage changes — so you know whether to talk to engineering or to procurement.