S3 storage classes
Tags: aws, awss3, cloudstorage
Published: 2023-11-21 05:20:30


### Introduction

S3 is one of the most commonly used services in AWS and is also handy when it comes to the storage of objects. In this blog, I will be highlighting my deeper understanding of the service.

### S3 Overview

Amazon S3 allows the storage of objects or files in buckets .

Buckets must have a globally unique name and be defined at the region level .

- No uppercase
- No underscore
- Must start with a lowercase letter or number
- 3-63 characters long
 
![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/7usn6z8iiqy3hqunuuim.png)

Objects are files stored in the bucket, they have a key which is the full path. You can either add a file or a folder.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/bkmoew2j3tn5c3h79tbw.png)

The object values ​​are the content of the body:

- Max size is 5TB
- If uploading more than 5GB, must use "multi-part upload"

## S3 Storage Classes

- Amazon S3 Standard
- Amazon S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (IA)
- Amazon S3 One Zone-Infrequent Access
- Amazon S3 Glacier
- Amazon S3 Intelligent Tiering

Objects can be moved between classes manually or using S3 lifecycle configurations.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/kr1rza052raijabnzv4b.png)


### S3 Durability and Availability

**Durability:**

High durability (99.999999999%,) 11 9's of objects across multiple AZ. In essence, if you store 10 million objects with Amazon S3, the expected loss to incur on average is a single object once every 10,000 years.

**Availability:**

This is the ability to measure how readily available the service is. S3 standard has 99.99% availability

Looking at each storage class based on their availability.

### **S3 Standard – General Purpose**

- 99.99% Availability
- Used for frequently accessed data
- Low latency and high throughput
- Use Cases: Big Data analytics, mobile and gaming applications, content distribution

### **S3 Storage Classes – Infrequent Access**
Used in situations where data is less frequently accessed, but requires rapid access when needed. It offers a Lower cost than S3 Standard

**Amazon S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA)**

- 99.9% Availability
- Use cases: Disaster Recovery, backups

**Amazon S3 One Zone-Infrequent Access (S3 One Zone-IA)**

- 99.5% Availability
- High durability (99.999999999%) in a single AZ; data is lost when AZ is destroyed
- Use Cases: Storing secondary backup copies of on-premise data, or data you can recreate

### **Amazon S3 Glacier Storage Classes**

- Low-cost object storage meant for archiving / backup
- Pricing: Price for storage + object retrieval cost

**Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval**

- Millisecond retrieval is great for data accessed once a quarter
- Minimum storage duration of 90 days

**Amazon S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval (formerly Amazon S3 Glacier):**

- Expedited (1 to 5 minutes), Standard (3 to 5 hours), Bulk (5 to 12 hours) – free
- Minimum storage duration of 90 days

**Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive – for long-term storage:**

- Standard (12 hours), Bulk (48 hours)
- Minimum storage duration of 180 days

### **S3 Intelligent-Tiering**

- Small monthly monitoring and auto-tiering fee
- Moves objects automatically between Access Tiers based on usage
- There are no retrieval charges in S3 Intelligent-Tiering

**Reference**
https://aws.amazon.com/s3/storage-classes
https://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing