Scenario

To save storage space and costs, you can delete unnecessary file or file folders.

Note:

When the versioning feature is not enabled for a bucket, files deleted from the bucket cannot be restored.
When deleting a file folder, all files contained within it are also removed.
Deleting files is irreversible. Exercise caution when performing this operation.

Manual Deletion and Automatic Deletion

You can manually delete objects at any time or use the Lifecycle Management feature to automatically delete object at regular intervals.

Individual File Deletion and Batch Deletion

You can delete individual files one by one or batch delete multiple files at once.

Description

The performance of batch deletion is adversely affected by the number of files included in the request. To calculate the Queries Per Second (QPS) for deleting n files, each file deletion operation needs to be calculated. When a large number of files with sequential alphabetical prefixes need deletion, numerous requests accumulate in the specific region, resulting in an access hotspot. In such cases, the request speed becomes limited, leading to increased latency.

To solve this issue, reduce the number of files in a single request and increase the number of concurrent requests.

File Deletion with Versioning Enabled

When versioning is enabled for a bucket, various methods are employed to delete different targets:

• Deleting file or folders: File or folders are preserved as historical versions rather than being completely deleted. However, they are marked as deleted.

o If you want to completely delete them, use the complete deletion method.

o The deleted files can be restored. For more information, see Restore Files.

• Deleting a specific version: The version will be completely deleted and cannot be restored. If the latest version of a file is deleted, the most recent historical version becomes the latest one.

o When versioning is enabled, a "deleted" file still retains multiple versions.

Methods

Usage	Reference Documentation
Console	For more information, seeDelete Files.
ZOSBrowser	You can delete files in the ZOSBrowser interface. For more information, seeZOSBrowser.
SDK	ZOS supports various SDKs. For more information about code examples, seeDeveloper Documentation.
API	For more information, seeDelete an ObjectandDelete Objects in Batch.

Zettabyte Object Storage

Deleting Files