I once audited a company storing 50TB of log files in S3 Standard. They were paying $1,150/month. After moving old logs to Glacier Deep Archive, their bill dropped to $150/month. Same data, different storage class.
The 7 S3 Storage Classes
AWS offers seven storage classes, each optimized for different access patterns:
1. S3 Standard (~$0.023/GB)
The default. High durability, high availability, instant access. Use for frequently accessed data—active application files, recent uploads, hot data.
2. S3 Intelligent-Tiering (~$0.023/GB + monitoring fee)
Automatically moves data between tiers based on access patterns. Small monitoring fee per object. Great when you're not sure how often data will be accessed.
3. S3 Standard-IA (~$0.0125/GB)
Infrequent Access. 45% cheaper than Standard, but charges for retrieval. Perfect for backups, disaster recovery, data accessed monthly.
4. S3 One Zone-IA (~$0.01/GB)
Same as Standard-IA but stored in one AZ only. 20% cheaper. Good for reproducible data you can regenerate if lost.
5. S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval (~$0.004/GB)
Archive storage with millisecond retrieval. 68% cheaper than Standard. For data accessed once per quarter but needs instant access when requested.
6. S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval (~$0.0036/GB)
Archive storage with retrieval times from minutes to hours. For backups and archives you rarely need to access quickly.
7. S3 Glacier Deep Archive (~$0.00099/GB)
Cheapest storage in AWS. 12-hour retrieval time. For compliance archives, data you keep for years but almost never access.
My Recommended Strategy
- 0-30 days: S3 Standard
- 30-90 days: S3 Standard-IA
- 90-365 days: S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval
- 1+ years: S3 Glacier Deep Archive
Set up S3 Lifecycle Policies to automate transitions. Once configured, data moves between classes automatically.
Need Help Optimizing S3 Costs?
Contact us: info@cloudelevate.ai
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