# Create a free trial instance and import sample data

This Bigtable free trial instance quickstart guides you through the
initial steps of setting up your Bigtable free trial instance and exploring
Bigtable capabilities.

Your Bigtable free trial instance lets you learn and explore
Bigtable features and capabilities at no cost for 90 days. For more information
about Bigtable free trial and Bigtable free trial instances, see
[Free trial overview](https://docs.cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs/free-trial-instance).

In this quickstart, you perform the following actions:

- Create a Bigtable free trial instance in Google Cloud console.
- Run a query on the example data using Bigtable Studio.
- Import 100 GB of sample data for performance testing.
- Import your own data into your Bigtable free trial instance using Cloud Shell.

## Before you begin

- A 10-day trial period is available to any user with a Google Account.
- The 10-day trial period can be [extended](https://docs.cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs/create-free-trial-instance#extend) to 90 days if Cloud Billing is enabled in the project with the Bigtable free trial instance. You aren't charged unless you choose to [upgrade](https://docs.cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs/create-free-trial-instance#upgrade) your Bigtable free trial instance to a paid instance.
- If you delete the Bigtable free trial instance, it **won't be possible to create another instance again**, even if the 90-day trial period is still active.
- Enable the APIs and assign IAM roles:

## Create a Bigtable free trial instance

The following steps explain how to create a Bigtable free trial instance using
the Google Cloud console.

1. Open the **Welcome to Bigtable** page in the Google Cloud console.

   [Welcome to Bigtable](https://console.cloud.google.com/bigtable/welcome)
2. In the **Experience Bigtable at no cost and no commitment**
   section, enter the following:

   1. For **Instance name** , enter the name of your instance. For example, `Free trial instance`.
   2. (Optional) In the **Instance ID** , review the auto-generated instance identifier and change it, if required. Examples in this guide use the `free-trial-instance` ID.
   3. For **Region**, select a region near you.
   4. For **Zone** , select **Any**.
3. Click **Create free instance**.

## Learn Bigtable fundamentals

[Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvoGRcMvVYw)

Your Bigtable free trial instance interface in Google Cloud console provides an
optional interactive tutorial, which guides you through the journey of learning
and trying out Bigtable fundamentals.

As an option, you can watch this 4-minute introductory video in your
Bigtable free trial instance's overview:

1.
   In the Google Cloud console, open the list of Bigtable instances.


   [Open the instance list](https://console.cloud.google.com/bigtable/instances)
2. Click your Bigtable free trial instance (`free-trial-instance`).

3. In the navigation pane, click **Overview**.

4. In the **Get the most out of your free instance** section, select
   **Bigtable fundamentals** , then click **Play video**.

5. To finish this tutorial step, click **Mark as complete**.

## Query sample data

When you create your Bigtable free trial instance in the
Google Cloud console, Bigtable creates a sample table and sample queries for you to
explore and familiarize yourself with Bigtable features and
capabilities.

The `weather-data` table contains sample weather data reported by airports around the world. To run an example query on this table in
Bigtable Studio:

1.
   In the Google Cloud console, open the list of Bigtable instances.


   [Open the instance list](https://console.cloud.google.com/bigtable/instances)
2. Click your Bigtable free trial instance (`free-trial-instance`).

3. In the navigation pane, click **Overview**.

4. In the **Get the most out of your free instance** section, select
   **Query table** , then click **Query table**.

   A short welcome tour explains the basics of SQL queries in
   Bigtable Studio.

   > [!NOTE]
   > **Note:** If this step isn't available, check that the [previous step](https://docs.cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs/create-free-trial-instance#learn) is marked as complete.

5. The following query for the sample data is created in
   Bigtable Studio:

       SELECT *
       FROM `weather-data`(WITH_HISTORY=>FALSE)
       LIMIT 10;

6. Click **Run** . The results of your query appear in the **Results** table.

7. To finish this tutorial step, go back to **Oveview** and click
   **Mark as complete**.

### Explore sample queries

Your free instance has more sample queries to explore. You can check them out
in the **Queries** section.

1.
   In the Google Cloud console, open the list of Bigtable instances.


   [Open the instance list](https://console.cloud.google.com/bigtable/instances)
2. Click your Bigtable free trial instance (`free-trial-instance`).

3. In the navigation pane, click **Bigtable Studio**.

4. In the **Explorer** pane, expand **Queries**.

5. Explore sample queries that demonstrate different aspects of Bigtable querying.

   For more information about the query syntax, see
   [GoogleSQL for Bigtable overview](https://docs.cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs/googlesql-overview).

## Import test table for performance benchmarks

To explore Bigtable's capabilities when working with large
volumes of data, you can import a test table to run realistic performance
benchmarks and explore monitoring tools. The test table contains 100 GB of
sample data based on the
[Yahoo! Cloud Serving Benchmark (YCSB)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YCSB)
test.

To import the table for performance testing:

1.
   In the Google Cloud console, open the list of Bigtable instances.


   [Open the instance list](https://console.cloud.google.com/bigtable/instances)
2. Click your Bigtable free trial instance (`free-trial-instance`).

3. In the navigation pane, click **Overview**.

4. In the **Get the most out of your free instance** section, select
   **Bigtable performance** , then click **Import YCSB data** and wait until the table is created.

5. Click **Tables** in the navigation pane, then click the `YCSB` table.

6. Once data is populated in the YCSB table, you can run a query the table in
   the Bigtable Studio.

7. To finish this tutorial step, go back to **Oveview** and click
   **Mark as complete**.

To dive deeper, you can follow the
[PerfKitBenchmarker tutorial](https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/PerfKitBenchmarker/tree/master/tutorials/bigtable_walkthrough) for
Bigtable to create custom tests tailored to your specific use cases. To learn more about performance testing, see [Understand performance](https://docs.cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs/performance).

## Import data

You can continue exploring Bigtable by loading large quantities
of data, such as time-series, telemetry logs, or machine learning data, into
your tables.

Bigtable supports many
[ways to import data](https://docs.cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs/import-export). For example, you
can start by importing data from a CSV file in Cloud Shell:

1.
   In the Google Cloud console, open the list of Bigtable instances.


   [Open the instance list](https://console.cloud.google.com/bigtable/instances)
2. Click your Bigtable free trial instance (`free-trial-instance`).

3. In the navigation pane, click **Overview**.

4. In the **Get the most out of your free instance** section, select
   **Import data**.

5. Click **Import** and select **Import CSV via CLI**.

6. Import CSV data using one of the options:

   - Follow the steps outlined in
     [Import CSV data](https://docs.cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs/import-export#csv) to upload a local
     CSV file to Cloud Shell.

   - Create a new example file in Cloud Shell:

     ### Create an example CSV file and fill it with data

     1. Run the following command in the Cloud Shell to create a new
        file:

            nano example-data.csv

     2. Copy the following example data into the file:

            ,timestamp_start,timestamp_end,point,description
            ,timestamp,timestamp,coordinate,value
            0001, 2026-045T08:12:22.668, 2026-045T08:30:59.193, 35.403, HIGH_RES
            0002, 2026-045T08:16:06.072, 2026-045T08:17:21.548, -25.831, LOW_RES
            0003, 2026-045T08:05:29.093, 2026-045T08:40:22.250, 23.703, HIGH_RES
            0004, 2026-045T08:18:30.030, 2026-045T08:20:16.674, -5.818, LOW_RES
            0005, 2026-045T08:43:49.486, 2026-045T08:51:36.868, 42.041, HIGH_RES
            0006, 2026-045T08:17:55.572, 2026-045T08:22:32.530, 96.509, HIGH_RES
            0007, 2026-045T08:02:02.056, 2026-045T08:59:34.785, 87.653, HIGH_RES
            0008, 2026-045T08:12:50.590, 2026-045T08:43:19.412, -10.296, LOW_RES
            0009, 2026-045T08:18:29.009, 2026-045T08:47:44.556, 23.375, LOW_RES
            0010, 2026-045T08:14:26.152, 2026-045T08:37:10.951, -11.726, HIGH_RES
            0011, 2026-045T08:07:44.270, 2026-045T08:37:29.702, -55.675, HIGH_RES
            0012, 2026-045T08:17:47.771, 2026-045T08:19:23.476, 37.794, HIGH_RES
            0013, 2026-045T08:29:27.933, 2026-045T08:59:45.301, -12.718, LOW_RES
            0014, 2026-045T08:12:31.432, 2026-045T08:48:47.590, -65.408, HIGH_RES
            0015, 2026-045T08:13:15.119, 2026-045T08:37:50.639, 99.327, LOW_RES

     3. Press <kbd>Ctrl+X</kbd>, then confirm with <kbd>y</kbd>.

7. Make sure that the table you want to import your data to is already
   created and matches the CSV data structure.

   If you don't have a table, you can
   [Create a new table](https://docs.cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs/managing-tables#create-table) that
   matches your CSV structure. For example, you can do it in the
   Google Cloud console, or using the `cbt` commands.

   The following command in the Cloud Shell creates a new table for
   the provided example CSV file:

       cbt -project PROJECT_ID \
         -instance free-trial-instance \
         createtable TABLE_ID \
         families=timestamp_start,timestamp_end,point,description

   Replace the following:
   - <var translate="no">PROJECT_ID</var>: the project where your Bigtable free trial instance is located.
   - <var translate="no">TABLE_ID</var>: the ID for the new table. For example, `example-table`.
8. Run the following command in the Cloud Shell prompt to import data from
   the CSV file to the table:

       cbt -project PROJECT_ID \
         -instance free-trial-instance  \
         import TABLE_ID \
          FILE_NAME

   Replace the following:
   - <var translate="no">PROJECT_ID</var>: the project where your Bigtable free trial instance is located.
   - <var translate="no">TABLE_ID</var>: the ID of the table you want to import the data to.
   - <var translate="no">FILE_NAME</var>: the name of the CSV file to import.

   Example:

       cbt -project example-project -instance free-trial-instance import \
       example-table example-data.csv

or other ways to import data to Bigtable, see
[Import and export data](https://docs.cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs/import-export).

## Extend the free trial period

You can extend the 10-day trial period to 90 days if your project has an active
Cloud Billing account.

To extend the free trial period to 90 days:

1. Make sure that your project has an active Cloud Billing
   account.

   If you are a new Google Cloud customer, sign in to the
   Google Cloud console with your Google Account and set up a
   Cloud Billing account with your
   [credit card or other payment method](https://docs.cloud.google.com/billing/docs/how-to/payment-methods#available_payment_methods)
   first before creating a Bigtable free trial instance. Google uses this payment information to verify your identity. We don't charge your Bigtable instance unless you explicitly
   [upgrade your Cloud Billing account to a paid account](https://docs.cloud.google.com/free/docs/free-cloud-features#how-to-upgrade),
   and you [upgrade your Bigtable free trial instance](https://docs.cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs/create-free-trial-instance#upgrade).
2.
   In the Google Cloud console, open the list of Bigtable instances.


   [Open the instance list](https://console.cloud.google.com/bigtable/instances)
3. Click your Bigtable free trial instance (`free-trial-instance`).

4. In the navigation pane, click **Overview**.

5. In the **Overview** section, click **Extend trial**.

## Upgrade the Bigtable free trial instance

After your upgrade your Bigtable free trial instance, the trial is finished
and
[trial capabilities limitations](https://docs.cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs/free-trial-instance#cost-and-eligibility)
no longer apply to your instance. For example, you can scale it or enable
replication.

The following steps explain how to upgrade your Bigtable free trial instance:

1.
   In the Google Cloud console, open the list of Bigtable instances.


   [Open the instance list](https://console.cloud.google.com/bigtable/instances)
2. Click your Bigtable free trial instance (`free-trial-instance`).

3. In the navigation pane, click **Overview**.

4. In the **Overview** section, click **Upgrade**.

   The **Upgrade your Bigtable free instance** page opens and
   displays a comparison between trial capabilities and full capabilities.

   > [!NOTE]
   > **Note:** If this button isn't available, [extend the free trial](https://docs.cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs/create-free-trial-instance#extend) first.

5. Click **Upgrade**.

   After your instance is upgraded you can
   [Modify your instance](https://docs.cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs/modifying-instance) to configure
   replication, autoscaling and other options.

## Delete the Bigtable free trial instance

> [!WARNING]
> **Warning:** Deleting a Bigtable free trial instance permanently removes the instance and all its data. You can't undo this later. Also, **you can't create another Bigtable free trial instance** after you've deleted your first Bigtable free trial instance. You can create one Bigtable free trial instance per project lifecycle.

1.
   In the Google Cloud console, open the list of Bigtable instances.


   [Open the instance list](https://console.cloud.google.com/bigtable/instances)
2. Click your Bigtable free trial instance (`free-trial-instance`).

3. Click **Delete instance**.

4. Confirm deletion by typing the instance ID and click **Delete**.

## Troubleshooting

The **Welcome to Bigtable** page doesn't have fields to create a Bigtable free trial instance
:   You can create one Bigtable free trial instance per project. If you've
    already created a Bigtable free trial instance in your project, you can't
    create another one, even if you delete the original instance.

## What's next

- Learn more about [Bigtable free trial instance](https://docs.cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs/free-trial-instance).
- Learn more about Bigtable [Instances, clusters, and nodes](https://docs.cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs/instances-clusters-nodes).
- Learn more about [modifying your instance](https://docs.cloud.google.com/bigtable/docs/modifying-instance).
- For details on Bigtable pricing after the free trial period, see the [Pricing page](https://docs.cloud.google.com/bigtable/pricing).