PDE Ingesting and Processing the Data Practice Question
A data engineer needs to schedule recurring nightly loads from Amazon S3 to Google Cloud Storage. The data is in CSV format and the volume is approximately 500 GB per night. Which Google Cloud service should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Google often tests the distinction between services that transfer data to Cloud Storage (Storage Transfer Service) versus services that load data directly into BigQuery (BigQuery Data Transfer Service), causing candidates to confuse the destination.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Storage Transfer Service
The Storage Transfer Service is designed for online data transfers from external cloud providers like Amazon S3 to Google Cloud Storage. It supports scheduling recurring nightly transfers, handles large volumes (500 GB/night), and automatically retries failed transfers, making it the correct choice for this use case.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Transfer Appliance
Why it's wrong here
Transfer Appliance is a physical racked device shipped to your site for one-off migrations of hundreds of terabytes; it cannot run a recurring nightly 500 GB job. It is tempting for very large S3-to-Cloud-Storage moves, where shipping hardware beats network transfer.
- ✓
Storage Transfer Service
Why this is correct
Storage Transfer Service performs server-side, managed transfers between object stores, including S3 to Cloud Storage, and handles scheduling, retries and 500 GB nightly volumes without compute provisioning. CSV format is irrelevant since it copies objects verbatim.
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BigQuery Data Transfer Service
Why it's wrong here
BigQuery Data Transfer Service loads data into BigQuery datasets on a schedule; it does not land CSV files in a Cloud Storage bucket. It is tempting because it does support scheduled transfers from Amazon S3, but only when the destination is BigQuery.
- ✗
Datastream
Why it's wrong here
Datastream replicates ongoing change data streams from operational databases such as MySQL and PostgreSQL into BigQuery or Cloud Storage; it does not perform scheduled file-based transfers from Amazon S3. It would be the right choice for continuous CDC replication rather than nightly batch CSV movement.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PDE practice question is part of Courseiva's free Google Cloud certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the PDE exam.