Google Cloud storage provides the option to store your unstructured data with built-in version control, multi-region availability, and four types of storage classes that can help manage the life cycle of your data on Google Cloud.

To get started with Google Cloud storage:

1. Click on the top-left menu and then on Storage option under the Storage category as shown in the following screenshot
2. Click on Create a bucket in the dialog or the CREATE BUCKET button at the top and enter a bucket name; it should be unique across all Google Cloud storage buckets and not just your account

3. Choose Regional for the default storage class of the bucket and choose your region for Regional location:

4. Once the bucket is created, upload a file by clicking on the UPLOAD FILES button
5. Download the sample CSV file from the following given URL and upload it to your storage bucket

We will be using this file to import its data to the BigQuery table. 

Google Cloud storage provides buckets as top-level storage structures for projects. Under buckets, the user can create a folder or directly upload files into the buckets. These files and folders in the bucket can be shared with others via a URL. We can also set the expiry date for the shared link so that it becomes inactive after a specified date. 

Google provides four storage classes for the buckets. In Multi-Regional buckets, the contents of the bucket are stored across data centers in various regions of Google Cloud. Regional buckets are stored only in one region, which you choose when creating the bucket. Most live data used by an application can be stored in Multi-Regional and Regional buckets as they provide high availability and minimum storage duration. These storage classes can be used to store the data needed by applications or ETL processes that run everyday.

Data that is less frequently used can be stored in Nearline storage buckets. These buckets have a minimum storage duration of 30 days. Data for the past month or past year is usually moved from the Regional bucket to the Nearline bucket to save money. There is another storage class that is cheaper than Nearline; it is called Coldline storage. The buckets in this storage class have a minimum storage duration of 90 days, and mostly data older than 2 years or Disaster Recovery data is stored in this type of bucket. The minimum storage duration for Nearline and Coldline buckets means that the object should not be deleted or moved from those buckets within the number of days specified for each bucket type. Objects in Nearline and Coldline buckets can be modified and retrieved before the minimum storage duration days end.

The cost of storing objects decreases as we move an object from Multi-region buckets to Regional buckets to Nearline and Coldline buckets. The cost of retrieving objects is highest for Coldline, slightly less for Nearline, and lowest for Regional and Multi-line buckets.