Amazon S3 offers different storage classes to get most of your data storage. It is defined by the purpose or the access pattern employed by you for your data. In this blog post, we will go through the storage classes offered by Amazon S3. Before we begin, if you need to get a refresher on What is Amazon S3? and the Features of Amazon S3, you can read our previous articles by clicking on the respective links.
Let\’s start with understanding various storage classes offered by Amazon S3:-
General Purpose (Amazon S3 Standard)
This is a general-purpose storage class with high durability, availability, and performant object storage for frequently accessed data. This is used when you need access to your data frequently like in web applications, dynamic websites etc. It delivers low latency and high throughput, which makes it appropriate for a wide variety of use cases. Some of the key features are:
- Designed for durability
- Low Latency and High throughput
- High Availability
- Support HTTPS for data in transit
- It is resilient against an entire Availability Zone failure
- Lifecycle management for automatic migration of objects
Amazon S3 Standard-Infrequent Access
This storage class is good where data is accessed infrequently but is required at a high speed whenever it is accessed. This allows you to save important data in a low-cost storage service. The low cost and easy access capabilities of this storage class make are it perfect for use case like disaster recovery. Some of the key features are:
- Designed for durability
- Low Latency and High throughput
- High Availability
- Support HTTPS for data in transit
- It is resilient against an entire Availability Zone failure
- Lifecycle management for automatic migration of objects
Amazon S3 One Zone-Infrequent Access
This storage class is similar to the Amazon S3 Standard Infrequent Access. This also allows you to park data in a low-cost storage service while giving you high-speed access whenever it is required. One of the key difference is that it is not resilient to the Availability Zone failures, as it keeps the entire data in a single Availability Zone. Some of the features are:
- Designed for durability in a single Availability Zone
- Low Latency and High throughput
- High Availability
- Support HTTPS for data in transit
- Lifecycle management for automatic migration of objects
Amazon S3 Glacier (Archives)
This storage class is good for archives. The data is neither accessed frequently nor required quickly whenever accessed. This is a low-cost solution to save tonnes of archived data in cloud storage. It is best for use cases like artefacts or reports which are once used will probably not required for many days or months. Some of the features are:
- Designed for durability
- Low Cost
- High Availability
- Support HTTPS for data in transit
- It is resilient against an entire Availability Zone failure
- Lifecycle management for automatic migration of objects or API
Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive
This storage class is also used for archives but it is mainly useful in the use-cases where the regulatory bodies require you to store data for a longer duration like 7-10 years. The example of regulated industries includes healthcare and finance. Some of the key features are:
- Designed for durability
- Low Cost
- Support HTTPS for data in transit
- It is resilient against an entire Availability Zone failure
- Lifecycle management for automatic migration of objects or API
Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering
This is the cloud storage that offers automatic cost saving by analysing the access patterns and moving the data to the right tier for saving the cost. Some of the key features are:
- Automatically optimizes storage costs for data based on changing access patterns
- Designed for durability
- High Availability
- Objects are stored in four tiers and are optimised for frequent, infrequent, archive and deep archive access.
- Performance is similar to the above-mentioned access based storage classes
Amazon S3 Outposts
This storage class delivers the benefits of Amazon S3 for the on-premise AWS Outpost environment. AWS Outpost only supports one storage class. This allows you to save and manage S3 object with the same SDK and API used to manage them in the cloud version. Some of the key features are:
- Transfer data to AWS Regions using AWS DataSync
- S3 Object Compatibility
- Encryption
- Authentication and Authorization
- Durable
These are some storage classes offered by Amazon S3. Each storage class is designed to cater for a set of use cases and using them for the particular use case allows you to build a scalable and durable application while keeping your storage cost low.
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