Using Transfer Appliance for Large Offline Migrations

What Google Cloud Transfer Appliance is:

Transfer Appliance is a high-capacity, ruggedized physical storage server that Google ships directly to a customer's datacenter. Customers mount the appliance on their local high-speed network (via NFS, CIFS/SMB), copy their large data volumes locally onto the encrypted device, and ship it back to a Google upload facility to be ingested directly into Cloud Storage.

How it meets the requirements:

• Overcomes limited bandwidth (✓): Uploading 300 TB over a 20 Mbps connection over the public internet would take over three years. Transfer Appliance bypasses internet bandwidth constraints entirely by physically moving the data.
• Meets the two-week timeline (✓): Local copying over high-speed datacenter LAN connections (10 GbE / 40 GbE) takes only a few days, followed by standard physical shipping and rapid ingestion at Google's facility.
• High data capacity (✓): Transfer Appliance models are purpose-built to handle tens to hundreds of terabytes (or even petabytes with multiple units) in a single workflow.

Key advantages and capabilities:

• Multiple file protocols: Supports standard local network protocols such as NFS, SMB, and CIFS for straightforward mounting and data copying.
• End-to-end security: Data is encrypted at capture using industry-standard AES-256 encryption keys managed by the customer before the device leaves the datacenter.
• Rugged physical hardware: Designed specifically for secure, tamper-resistant transport and logistics tracking.
• Turnkey ingestion: Once received by Google, the encrypted payload is uploaded directly to the target Cloud Storage bucket and the appliance is cryptographically wiped.

Why this is optimal:

When calculating data migration feasibility, offline physical transport becomes significantly faster and more reliable than online network-based transfer when dealing with large data sizes (typically >20 TB) coupled with constrained or unreliable network bandwidth.