Domain 4 of 4 · Chapter 2 of 4

Cost-Optimized Storage

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Included in this chapter:

  • Lifecycle policy authoring patterns (multi-tier transitions)
  • Intelligent-Tiering monitoring fee math: when it pays off
  • Cross-class minimum charge pitfalls
  • Worked example: 50 GB daily backup retained 7 years — class comparison
  • Snapshot Archive vs custom AMI cold storage

S3 storage classes

Class$/GB-mo (us-east-1)Retrieval feeMin storage daysMin billable object sizeFirst-byte latencyUse when
Standard$0.023NoneNoneNonemsActive data, unknown access pattern
Intelligent-Tiering$0.023 → $0.00099None (auto-tiers)None128 KBms (frequent/IA), minutes (archive)Unpredictable access; let AWS optimize
Standard-IA$0.0125$0.01/GB30 days128 KBmsKnown IA pattern; ≥1 month between reads
One Zone-IA$0.01$0.01/GB30 days128 KBmsReproducible secondary copies in single AZ
Glacier Instant Retrieval$0.004$0.03/GB90 days128 KBmsQuarterly access with millisecond retrieval
Glacier Flexible Retrieval$0.0036$0.01-0.03/GB90 days40 KBMinutes (Expedited) to 12h (Bulk, free)Archived data with periodic retrieval
Glacier Deep Archive$0.00099$0.0025-0.02/GB180 days40 KB12h (Standard) / 48h (Bulk)Long-term compliance retention
Cheat sheet

Cheat sheet

  • Cost = access pattern × volume, not just volume
  • Lifecycle policies > manual tiering; Intelligent-Tiering > both when unknown
  • Watch the minimum-size and minimum-storage traps
  • 128 KB is the IA minimum — millions of tiny files cost MORE in IA
  • 30 / 90 / 180-day minimum storage charges
  • Glacier retrieval tiers: Expedited / Standard / Bulk
  • Intelligent-Tiering: no retrieval fee, small monitoring fee
  • EFS lifecycle: similar pattern to S3, different tier names
  • EBS Snapshot Archive: 75% cheaper, 90-day minimum
  • S3 Storage Lens dashboards quantify storage by class / bucket / prefix
  • EFS throughput modes: Bursting baseline shrinks as data moves to IA; Elastic scales automatically; Archive requires Elastic
  • Storage Gateway modes: Tape replaces tapes → Deep Archive; Volume cached minimizes on-prem; Volume stored keeps data local; S3 File = S3 objects via SMB/NFS; FSx File = FSx for Windows
  • Athena cost = per-TB scanned — partition + columnar matters
  • S3 Lifecycle minimum transition wait: 0 days (Standard → IA: optional 30)

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Also tested in

References

  1. Amazon S3 storage classes
  2. Amazon S3 pricing
  3. Amazon EBS snapshot archive
  4. Amazon EFS lifecycle management
  5. Managing the lifecycle of objects (S3 lifecycle)
  6. S3 Intelligent-Tiering
  7. Restoring archived S3 objects (retrieval tiers)
  8. S3 Storage Lens
  9. https://aws.amazon.com/athena/pricing/
  10. S3 Lifecycle transition general considerations
  11. S3 Intelligent-Tiering
  12. S3 Glacier storage classes
  13. Amazon EBS Snapshots Archive (AWS Blog) Blog