S3 Tiered Storage - Standard S3, S3-IA, RRS, Glacier

S3 support tiered storage and has lifecycle management to decide what data sits on which tier: S3, S3 Intelligent tiering, S3 IA, S3 One Zone IA, Glacier and Glacier Deep Archive

Based on below storage purpose of the data, S3 offers different storage classes.

1. General Purpose

   1. Amazon S3 Standard (S3 Standard)

2. Unknown or changing access

   1. Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering (S3 Intelligent-Tiering)

3. Infrequent Access

   1. Amazon S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA)

   2. Amazon S3 One Zone-Infrequent Access (S3 One Zone-IA)

4. Archive

   1. Amazon S3 Glacier (S3 Glacier)

   2. Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive (S3 Glacier Deep Archive)

S3 (S3 Standard)

1. Amazon guarantees an SLA of 99.99% availability and 99.999999999% (11 9s) durability for Standard S3.

   1. Note: Durability means the chance of not losing your data.

2. Is the default.

3. It delivers low latency and high throughput

S3 Intelligent-Tiering

1. It has same latency and high throughput of S3 Standard

2. It automatically moves objects between two access tiers based on access patterns

3. It provides durability of 99.999999999% and 99.9% availability

4. Small monthly monitoring and auto-tiering fee

S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA)

1. For data that is used less frequently but needs faster access when needed.

2. Offers the high durability, throughput, and low latency of Amazon S3 Standard (means same performance).

3. Availability is 99.9 %, slightly lesser.

4. Ideal for long-term storage, backups, and as a data store for disaster recovery.

5. Can exist in the same bucket as Standard.

6. Two ways to get data into S3 – IA from S3.

   1. PUT into S3 – IA by specifying STANDARD_IA in the x-amz-storage-class header.

   2. Using lifecycle policies.

7. Pricing:

   1. Has lower storage fee than S3, but has an access fee.

   2. If I change storage class of an object from Standard-IA to Standard with a copy request, will be charged for copy request and a Standard-IA data retrieval.

   3. Data that is deleted from Standard - IA within 30 days will be charged for a full 30 days. 

   4. Minimum file size is 128KB. Objects smaller than 128KB in size will incur storage charges as if the object were 128KB.

S3 One Zone-Infrequent Access(S3 One Zone-IA)

1. For data that is less frequently accessed but requires rapid access when needed.

2. It costs 20% less than S3 Standard-IA.

3. Ideal for customers who want a lower-cost option for infrequently accessed data.

4. It offers the same high durability, high throughput, and low latency of S3 Standard but with a low per GB storage price and per GB retrieval fee

Glacier

1. is low-cost storage class and used for archival.

2. Though it integrates well with S3, it is an independent service.

3. Configurable retrieval times from mniutes to hours.

S3 Glacier Deep Archive (S3 Glacier Deep Archive)

1. It is the lowest-cost storage class.

2. Supports long-term retention and  digital preservation for data.