Amazon S3 Glacier is the Best Place to Archive Your Data – Introducing the S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval Storage Class

Today we are announcing the Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval storage class. This new archive storage class delivers the lowest cost storage for long-lived data that is rarely accessed and requires millisecond retrieval.

We are also excited to announce that S3 Intelligent-Tiering now automatically optimizes storage costs for rarely accessed data that needs immediate retrieval with the new Archive Instant Access tier, which is ideal for data with unknown or changing access patterns. For existing customers, this will provide an immediate savings of 68 percent for data that hasn’t been accessed for more than 90 days, with no action needed. The Frequent, Infrequent, and now Archive Instant Access tiers are designed for the same milliseconds access time and high-throughput performance.

In addition, we are announcing the new name for the existing Amazon S3 Glacier storage class and several price reductions.

Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval
The Amazon S3 Glacier storage classes are extremely low-cost and built for data archiving. They are secure and durable, and they are designed to provide the lowest cost for data that does not require immediate access, with retrieval options from minutes to hours.

Many customers need to store rarely accessed data for several years. However the data must be highly available and immediately accessible. Today, these customers use the S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA) storage class. This storage class offers low cost for storage and allows customers to retrieve their data instantly.

S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval is a new storage class that delivers the fastest access to archive storage, with the same low latency and high-throughput performance as the S3 Standard and S3 Standard-IA storage classes. You can save up to 68 percent on storage costs as compared with using the S3 Standard-IA storage class when you use the S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval storage class and pay a low price to retrieve data. For example, in the US East (N. Virginia) Region, S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval storage pricing is $0.004 per GB-month and data retrieval is $0.03 per GB. Learn more about pricing for your Region.

Media archives, medical images, or user-generated content are just a few examples of ideal use cases for S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval. Once created, this content is rarely accessed, but when it is needed it must be available in milliseconds.

To get started using the new storage class from the Amazon S3 console, upload an object as you would normally, and select the S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval storage class.

This feature is available programmatically from AWS SDKs, AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), and AWS CloudFormation.

In my opinion, the easiest way to store data in S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval is to use the S3 PUT API using the CLI. When using this API, set the storage class to GLACIER_IR.

aws s3api put-object --bucket <bucket-name> --key <object-key> --body <name-file> --storage-class GLACIER_IR

When the object is uploaded to Amazon S3, verify the storage class in the list of objects or on the object details page.

For data that already exists in Amazon S3, you can use S3 Lifecycle to transition data from the S3 Standard and S3 Standard-IA storage classes into S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval.

New Archive Instant Access Tier in S3 Intelligent-Tiering
S3 Intelligent-Tiering is a storage class that automatically moves objects between access tiers to optimize costs. This is the recommended storage class for data with unpredictable or changing access patterns, such as in data lakes, analytics, or user-generated content.

Until today, there were two low latency access tiers optimized for frequent and infrequent access, and two optional archive access tiers designed for asynchronous access optimized for rare access at a low cost.

Beginning today, the Archive Instant Access tier is added as a new access tier in the S3 Intelligent-Tiering storage class. You will start seeing automatic costs savings for your storage in S3 Intelligent-Tiering for rarely accessed objects.

The Archive Instant Access tier joins the group of low latency access tiers. This new tier is optimized for data that is not accessed for months at a time but, when it is needed, is available within milliseconds.

S3 Intelligent-Tiering automatically stores objects in three access tiers that deliver the same performance as the S3 Standard storage class:

• Frequent Access tier
• Infrequent Access tier
• Archive Instant Access (new)

For a small monitoring and automation charge, S3 Intelligent-Tiering monitors access patterns and moves objects between the different access tiers. Objects that have not been accessed for 30 consecutive days are moved from the Frequent Access tier to the Infrequent Access tier for savings of 40 percent. When an object hasn’t been accessed for 90 consecutive days, S3 Intelligent-Tiering will move the object from the Infrequent Access tier to the Archive Instant Access tier, with a savings of 68 percent. If the data is accessed later, it is automatically moved back to the Frequent Access tier. No tiering charges apply when objects are moved between access tiers within the S3 Intelligent-Tiering storage class.

To get started with this new access tier, select Intelligent-Tiering as the storage class for an object when uploading an object using the S3 console. After 90 days of inactivity (30 days in Frequent Access tier and 60 days in Infrequent Access tier), S3 Intelligent-Tiering will automatically move the object to the Archive Instant Access tier. The introduction of the new Archive Instant Access tier has no impact on performance when you retrieve objects.

New name for the Amazon S3 Glacier storage class – S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval
The existing Amazon S3 Glacier storage class is now named S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval. This storage class now has free bulk retrievals in 5 to 12 hours, and the storage price has been reduced by 10 percent in all Regions, effective December 1, 2021. S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval is now even more cost-effective, and the free bulk retrievals make it ideal for retrieving large data volumes.

These are the Amazon S3 archive storage classes:

• S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval: The newest storage class is optimized for long-lived data that is rarely accessed (typically once per quarter). However when data is needed, it is available within milliseconds. For example, medical images and news media assets are perfect for this storage class.
• S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval: This newly renamed storage class is optimized for archiving data that can be retrieved in minutes or with free bulk retrievals in 5 to 12 hours. This storage class is ideal for backups and disaster recovery use cases, where you have large amounts of long-term, rarely accessed data, and you don’t want to worry about retrieval costs when you need the data.
• S3 Glacier Deep Archive: This storage class is the lowest-cost storage in the cloud and is optimized for archiving data that can be restored in at least 12 hours. It’s great for storing your compliance archives or for digital media preservation.

Amazon S3 has reduced storage prices!
We are excited to announce that Amazon S3 has reduced storage prices of up to 31 percent in the S3 Standard-IA and S3 One Zone-IA storage classes across 9 AWS Regions: US West (N. California), Asia Pacific (Hong Kong), Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Asia Pacific (Osaka), Asia Pacific (Seoul), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), and South America (São Paulo). These price reductions are effective December 1, 2021.

Learn more about price reduction details.

Available Now
The new storage class, S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval, and the new Archive Instant Access tier in S3 Intelligent-Tiering are available today (November 30, 2021) in all AWS Regions.

The price cut for S3 Glacier and free bulk retrievals in all AWS Regions, and the S3 Standard-Infrequent Access/One Zone-Infrequent storage class in nine Regions will be effective on December 1, 2021.

Learn more about the storage classes changes and all the storage classes.

— Marcia