How do I manage data retrieval and storage costs for S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval and S3 Glacier Deep Archive?

Resolution

Set up an S3 Lifecycle configuration on a bucket

To reduce the storage costs for infrequently accessed objects, use an S3 Lifecycle configuration to transition the objects to S3 Glacier storage classes.

Before you set up an S3 Lifecycle configuration, see S3 Lifecycle considerations and Constraints and considerations for transitions. To set up an S3 Lifecycle configuration, see How to set an S3 Lifecycle configuration.

Review transition and storage costs

When you transition objects to S3 Glacier storage classes, you incur a transition and storage cost. The costs vary for each S3 Glacier storage class. For transitions, you're charged for every lifecycle transition request. For storage, you're charged for each gigabyte that you store. For more information, see Amazon S3 pricing.

Note: If you're transitioning a large number of objects, you can incur high transition costs because you're charged for every transition request. To reduce the transition and overhead storage charges, it's a best practice to combine small objects into a smaller number of large objects.

Review data retrieval costs

The costs vary for objects that you store in S3 Glacier storage classes based on the retrieval option that you use and the amount of data that you retrieve.

For example, you retrieve 15,000,000 objects from the S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval storage class. The total amount of retrieved data is 100 TB (102,400 GB). The following are example calculations of costs for each retrieval option.

Standard retrieval

The data retrieval request charges are 15,000,000 / 1000 * $0.05 = $750.

The per GB data retrieval charges are 102,400 * $0.01 = $1,024.

The total cost is $1,774.

Expedited retrieval

The data retrieval request charges are 15,000,000 / 1000 * $10 = $150,000.

The per GB data retrieval charges are 102,400 * $0.03 = $3,072.

The total cost is $153,072.

You're not charged to use bulk retrieval to retrieve objects that you store in S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval.

Minimum storage duration

Objects that you archive to S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval and S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval incur a charge for a minimum storage duration of 90 days. Objects that you archive to S3 Glacier Deep Archive incur a charge for a minimum storage duration of 180 days.

When you don't meet the minimum storage duration and you delete, overwrite, or transition data to a different storage class, you incur the storage usage charge. You also incur the prorated storage charge for the remainder of the minimum storage duration.

To estimate your billing costs, use the AWS Pricing Calculator.