Amazon has introduced a handful of changes to their S3 & Glacier
cloud storage tiers. To wit, pricing policy has been appreciably altered, and the selection of available retrieval options for Glacier—expanded. Let’s take a closer look at the novelties.
New Glacier Retrieval Options
Formerly, if you wanted to retrieve your files from Amazon Glacier, the only way you could do so is via the so-called Standard retrieval. Well, not anymore. Amazon has introduced 2 new tiers:
- Expedited: for those who are willing to spend a little more for higher speeds. You can get your data in as little as 1 to 5 minutes. Retrievals cost $0.03 per GB and $0.01 per request. Note that there are some provisions that may impede smooth restoration. If you need to get your data back in this time frame even in rare situations where demand is exceptionally high, you can provision retrieval capacity. Once you have done this, all Expedited retrievals will automatically be served via your Provisioned capacity. Each unit of Provisioned capacity costs $100 per month and ensures that you can perform at least 3 Expedited Retrievals every 5 minutes, with up to 150 MB/second of retrieval throughput. If you exceed that limit, expect errors on the part of Amazon.
- Bulk: for those who want to limit expenses by sacrificing access time. It is perfect for planned or non-urgent cases, with retrieval taking anywhere from 5 to 12 hours at a cost of $0.0025 per GB and every 1000 requests amounting to $0.025.
The Standard tier with your typical retrieval hours (3 to 5) also remains, costing $0.01 per GB along with $0.05 for every 1,000 requests.
MSP360 Backup 5.3 or newer allows you to select the preferable retrieval tier when setting up a restore plan.
By default, the Standard tier is used to retrieve data. So if you don't explicitly specify the tier, expect the Standard fees and retrieval waiting time.
Further reading Amazon S3 Glacier Pricing Explained
By the same token, peak retrieval rates have been eliminated from MSP360 Backup, as the new Glacier retrieval policy renders them obsolete.
