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R&D

S3 Storage Classes

The spectrum (3 anchors)

Section titled “The spectrum (3 anchors)”
Standard → IA → Glacier → Deep Archive
(hot)                        (cold)
storage $/GB ↓  (cheaper)
retrieval $/GB ↑ (more when you pull)
retrieval speed ↓ (ms → hours → 48h)

Classes

Section titled “Classes”
Class Use Retrieval
S3 Standard General use, hot, default ms
Intelligent-Tiering Unknown/unpredictable access — auto-moves ms
Standard-IA Standard reliability, rarely read, but ms when read ms
One Zone-IA RECREATABLE data only (single AZ — data lost if AZ dies) ms
Glacier Instant Archive price + ms retrieval (audit evidence, rare-but-instant) ms
Glacier Flexible Classic backups/archive 3-5h standard (1-5min expedited $$, 5-12h bulk)
Glacier Deep Archive Legal/compliance retention, NEVER queried 12-48h
S3 Outposts Data that must stay on-prem ms
  • Standard-IA min 128KB object + 30-day commitment + retrieval fee
  • One Zone-IA = 99.5% availability, single AZ, 80% cheaper than Standard
  • Deep Archive ≠ data warehouse (can’t query — 12-48h). Data warehouse → Standard/IR

Intelligent-Tiering internals

Section titled “Intelligent-Tiering internals”
Auto-manages 5 internal tiers by ACCESS AGE:
  Frequent (~Standard)      ← created here
  Infrequent (~Standard-IA) ← 30 days untouched
  Archive Instant (~Glacier IR) ← 90 days
  Archive (~Glacier Flexible)  ← 180 days
  Deep Archive (~Deep Archive) ← 270 days
Any access → moves BACK to Frequent automatically
  • Cost: small monitoring fee $0.0025/1000 objects/month
  • No retrieval fees for moving up (advantage over manual)
  • <128KB objects stay in Frequent
  • vs Lifecycle rules: manual timing (free) vs measured access (monitoring fee)
  • Predictable data → Lifecycle rules. Unknown pattern → Intelligent-Tiering

Exam shortcuts

Section titled “Exam shortcuts”
Must be ms           → Standard / Standard-IA / Glacier IR (price decides)
Can wait hours       → Glacier Flexible
Can wait 48h         → Deep Archive
Regenerable data     → One Zone-IA
Unknown pattern      → Intelligent-Tiering
Old logs 90-day rule → Lifecycle rules (free) → Glacier
7-year legal archive → Deep Archive
  • 11 nines durability = Standard (multi-AZ). Exam tests relative ordering, NOT exact prices
Section titled “Related”
  • [[aws/index]]
  • [[aws/storage-types/index]]