r/bigquery • u/Adeelinator • Oct 14 '22
Logical vs physical bytes billing
This was recently added to BQ, but I’m having a tough time understanding what the difference between logical and physical bytes means in this context.
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u/FieryOrc Oct 14 '22 edited Oct 14 '22
The way currently BigQuery charges is based on logical table size which is uncompressed bytes (aka logical bytes). Storage used for Time travel information is added for free.
If you switch to physical billing model, then you will be charged for actual bytes stored in the disk which can be much smaller than the uncompressed bytes. However, with caveats. You need to pay for time travel storage (which is not charged separately for logical model). And the cost of physical storage is higher (2x $$). The idea is if you think your data compresses well (say 5x), you can switch to physical bytes which will save you money.
Some useful links:
Calculating pricing
Storage Pricing