What is Amazon S3 Storage Class?
Amazon S3 provides different ways (storage classes) of storing the objects. S3 storage classes allows you to define how your object is stored and accessed. If you don’t apply any storage class, by default Standard storage class is associated with every object. To optimize the storage cost, you can choose the right storage class for your use case.
Types of storage classes
- Amazon S3 Standard
- Amazon S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA)
- Amazon S3 One Zone-Infrequent Access (S3 One Zone-IA)
- Amazon S3 Glacier
- Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive
- Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering
Amazon S3 Standard
S3 Standard is a default, general-purpose, cost effective storage class. It is designed for use cases where low latency, high throughput, high durability, and high availability are required.
Use case examples:
- Cloud applications
- Website hosting
- Content distribution
- Mobile Applications
- Big data Analysis
Features:
- Durability – 99.999999999%
- Availability – 99.99%
- Performance – Low latency and high throughput
- Security- It supports SSL for data in transit and encryption of data at rest (secure inactive data stored on S3).
- Lifecycle management – For automatic migration of objects from one storage class to another storage class.
- Service Level Agreement (SLA) – Covered by amazon S3 SLA (Contract between a service provider and its customer) for availability.
Amazon S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA)
S3 Standard-IA is designed for use cases where high availability, less frequent access, and long-term storage are required.
Use case examples:
- Data backup for disaster recovery files
- Data backup of deleted/unsubscribed users
Features:
- Durability – 99.999999999%
- Availability: 99.99%
- Performance and Cost – Low latency, lower cost than S3 standard and high performance (Ideal for long-term storage backups)
- Security- It supports SSL for data in transit and encryption of data at rest.
- Lifecycle management – For automatic migration of objects from one storage class to another storage class.
- Service Level Agreement (SLA) – Covered by amazon S3 SLA for availability.
Amazon S3 One Zone-Infrequent Access (S3 One Zone-IA)
Amazon S3 One Zone-IA is designed for use cases where data is accessed less frequently but requires rapid access when needed. S3 One Zone-Infrequent Access stores data in a single availability zone and costs 20% less than S3 Standard-IA due to lesser availability – 99.5%.
Use case examples:
- Backup copies of on-premises
- Disaster recovery copies
Features:
- Durability – 99.999999999%
- Availability: 99.5%
- Performance and Cost – Low latency, 20% less cost than S3 standard-IA.
- Security- It supports SSL for data in transit and encryption of data at rest.
- Lifecycle management – For automatic migration of objects from one storage class to another storage class.
- Service Level Agreement (SLA) – Covered by amazon S3 SLA for availability.
Amazon S3 Glacier
Amazon S3 Glacier is designed for use cases where long-term storage and data archiving required, the retrieval time may take from a few minutes to hours.
Use case examples:
- Media, News related data.
- Information of discharged patients, from Hospitals.
- Backup of organization’s inactive data.
Features:
- Durability – 99.999999999%
- Performance and Cost – Configurable retrieval times, from minutes to hours. Extremely low cost than S3 Standard.
- Amazon S3 Glacier has three different retrieval options:
- Expedited: Retrieval time between 1 to 5 minutes.
- Standard: Retrieval time between 3 to 5 hours.
- Bulk: Retrieval time between 5 to 12 hours.
- Security- It supports SSL for data in transit and encryption of data at rest.
- Lifecycle management – For automatic migration of objects from one storage class to another storage class.
The minimum storage duration period is 90 days.
Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive
Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive is the lowest-cost storage class and supports long-term retention. It is designed for use cases where rarely data is accessed in long-term and data archiving is required.
Use case examples:
- Financial transaction and & audit logs archives.
- Electronic medical records, and images (X-Ray, MRI, or CT).
- Physical Security – Raw camera footage.
Features:
- Durability – 99.999999999%
- Performance – Retrieval time within 12 hours.
- Cost – Lowest cost storage class (1GB/month starting at $0.00099)
- Lifecycle management – For automatic migration of objects from one storage class to another storage class.
- The minimum storage duration period is 180 days.
Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering
Amazon S3 One Zone-IA is designed to manage cost optimization automatically without performance impact. Amazon S3 monitors access patterns and moves your stored objects to an Infrequent access storage class, Which has not been accessed for 30 consecutive days. In case an object is accessed, then object will automatically move back to the frequent access tier. You can also move objects, from S3 Intelligent-Tiering to S3 Glacier for the archive.
Use case examples:
- Unpredictable data access
- Cost and storage optimization automatically.
Features:
- Durability – 99.999999999%
- Performance and Cost – Low latency and high throughput, Small monthly monitoring and auto-tiering fee.
- Security- It supports SSL for data in transit and encryption of data at rest.
- Lifecycle management – For automatic migration of objects from one storage class to another storage class.
- Service Level Agreement (SLA) – Covered by amazon S3 SLA for availability.
Image via [https://aws.amazon.com/s3/storage-classes/ ]