Initial upload to S3 Standard
Cloud / Knowledge library
Amazon S3 Glacier Storage Classes
Provides low-cost S3 archival classes with different retrieval times and access assumptions
Why learn Amazon S3 Glacier Storage Classes?
Teams use Amazon S3 Glacier Storage Classes to adopt archive storage without building the complete underlying platform themselves.
The problem it solves
Retains infrequently accessed data at low storage cost with slower retrieval
Where it came from
Amazon S3 Glacier Storage Classes is Amazon Web Services's offering for archive storage. Its closest catalog counterparts are Azure Blob Archive Tier and Google Cloud Archive Storage; they address the same broad need but are not feature-for-feature identical.
Build your understanding
Work through these exercises in order. Try the task before opening a reference.
- Explain the main responsibility of Amazon S3 Glacier Storage Classes.
- Choose a workload that fits Amazon S3 Glacier Storage Classes.
- Identify one operational tradeoff of Amazon S3 Glacier Storage Classes.
- Compare Amazon S3 Glacier Storage Classes with Azure Blob Archive Tier.
- Compare Amazon S3 Glacier Storage Classes with Google Cloud Archive Storage.
Documentation and sources
- AWS cloud services catalog (aws.amazon.com)
Connect the ideas
Alternatives
Real World Example
Archival Strategy for Media Production Houses
A boutique media production house managing high-resolution raw footage for completed client projects.
The business problem
The studio faces escalating storage costs by keeping all raw project files in standard S3 buckets, despite the fact that 95% of these files are never accessed after the final delivery to the client.
How this topic solves it
By implementing S3 Lifecycle policies, the studio can automatically transition older, inactive objects from S3 Standard to S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval or S3 Glacier Deep Archive, significantly reducing storage overhead while maintaining data durability.
- Identify project folders that have not been modified for over 90 days.
- Configure an S3 Lifecycle rule to transition objects from S3 Standard to S3 Glacier Deep Archive.
- Verify that the transition occurs automatically based on the object age filter.
- Implement an S3 Inventory report to track which objects have successfully moved to the archival tier.
This diagram illustrates the automated transition of media assets from active storage to archival tiers based on age.
Evaluates object age
Archival storage tier
Final project state
- Raw Footage → Project Completion → Client Delivery
- Client Delivery → Wait 90 Days → Lifecycle Engine
- Lifecycle Engine → Transition Action → S3 Glacier
Expected business outcome
The studio achieves a sustainable cost structure for long-term data retention without needing to manually manage file migrations or delete historical assets.
Limitations and checks
A primary limitation is the retrieval time and potential cost associated with accessing archived data; users must verify if the chosen class meets their specific recovery time objectives by checking the S3 storage class documentation for retrieval latency.