easy to use and navigate from the google cloud dashboard

gScale incorporates erasure coding to help better manage large amounts of data, and it also has the ability to balance the load to support demand spikes in the cloud. Unlike block storage, object storage (like gScale) does not use file hierarchies, folder names, or physical disk location to store content. Files are stored as whole objects or object segments in a flat address space, and information about the file is stored within its metadata. The metadata of these objects is customizable and includes elements such as the object's name, content type, retention period, source application, or replicas to maintain. The application can then request a file based on its unique identifier instead of using complex file hierarchies inherent to other storage systems like NAS.