
New Amazon S3 Storage Class – Glacier Deep Archive - nnx
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-amazon-s3-storage-class-glacier-deep-archive/
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Twirrim
It's a little irritating this is only available via the S3 API rather than
something I can just move my archive too. I guess maybe it's time to upload to
S3 and be finally retire my Glacier archive after ~5 years.

Reading between the lines, I wonder if they're really trying to just deprecate
the Glacier API, and move to Glacier being a different storage tier in S3.
Which is probably what it should have been in the first place. AWS will likely
never actually retire the Glacier API (much like SimpleDB has never actually
been retired), it'll just hang on, not receiving new features.

~~~
sly010
> [...] move to Glacier being a different storage tier in S3

I am almost certain they are playing catchup here, given that GCP had this
feature for ever ("coldline" storage class), last time I checked it was more
expensive though.

~~~
Twirrim
Glacier's standard archive pricing has been competitive with Coldline all
along, and S3 has had the ability via lifecycle to transition to Glacier since
early in Glacier's existence, so it's been effectively possible to leverage
the S3 API with Glacier, just with various provisos.

Glacier here seems to be dropping out an even cheaper option than they had
before, provided you're happier with even longer retrieval times. Which for my
purposes is perfectly fine.

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nerdponx
Call me silly, but this seems like a great option for backing up nonessential
personal data like a movie collection. It's even cheaper than Backblaze B2,
and the limitations (180 day minimum storage, 12 hour retrieval time) don't
seem like bad tradeoffs.

~~~
chucky_z
For backing up something personal, why don't you just use actual Backblaze?

~~~
jpalomaki
Backblaze is not necessarily optimal for this use case, since "files are
expunged from the servers after 30 days if they're removed from a computer"
[1]. For files stored for archive purposes, such as some old movies or CDs, it
might be that due to user error you happen to remove something but only notice
this when you actually need the content.

[1] [https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-
us/articles/217664898-What-...](https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-
us/articles/217664898-What-happens-to-my-backups-when-I-m-away-or-on-
vacation-)

~~~
rendaw
That sounds like their backup client software... B2 is dead cheap and there's
a lot of 3rd party clients which give you complete control over
retention/versioning.

~~~
votepaunchy
> B2 is dead cheap

B2 is 400% more expensive than Deep Archive. Whether the lower transfer costs
result in savings depends on your use case. For B2 the cost of transfer is 5x
a month of storage, for Deep Archive it’s 90x.

GCS is also cheaper than S3, with even higher transfer costs, but instant
access irrespective of storage class.

~~~
imtringued
It's also not some weird ass tape system that requires you to build your
entire workflow to accommodate it and then get surprise bills on retrieval
because it wasn't as cheap as you thought.

~~~
votepaunchy
“Today [November 2016] we are replacing the rate-based retrieval fees with
simpler per-GB pricing.”

[https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-storage-
update-s3-glaci...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-storage-
update-s3-glacier-price-reductions/)

------
planetjones
1 USD per month per TB. Finally a storage tier that allows me to back up my
media collection for what’s almost loose change.

~~~
Elect2
But every time you download your 1TB media, you pay $100 transfer+request fee.
At that cost you can nearly buy a 1T ssd hard drive.

~~~
jenskanis
The transfer fee for 1TB seems about $5 dollars when stored in EU, Frankfurt,
for bulk retrieval (24hrs). Standard retrieval is $24 dollars (12hrs). If
you'd compress all your files into one of couple zip files you will pay a tiny
amount for the requests.

~~~
dfrage
"Data Transfer OUT" or egress pricing is in addition to bulk retrieval, and
it's high. "From Amazon S3 To Internet" $0.09/GB, or $90.81 according to their
calculator:
[https://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html](https://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html)
If you have enough TB to transfer, Snowball should be cheaper:
[https://aws.amazon.com/snowball/pricing/](https://aws.amazon.com/snowball/pricing/)

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CaliforniaKarl
Excluding API call charges, retrieval fees, and transfer out charges:

If my math is correct, for N. California, 100 TB in Deep Archive is $204.80
per month, vs. $512 per month in regular Glacier.

For other non-Gov US regions, 100 TB in Deep Archive is $101.376 per month,
vs. $409.60 per month in regular Glacier.

[Edit: Addl. pricing info]

~~~
patrickg_zill
If you have to retrieve all of it, what is the cost?

~~~
privateSFacct
Depends a bit on if you use snowball

~~~
dfrage
Snowball ought to be quite a bit cheaper if you have enough TB to recover:
[https://aws.amazon.com/snowball/pricing/](https://aws.amazon.com/snowball/pricing/)

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azinman2
Off topic, but did anyone else press play to listen to Polly’s TTS of this
article? They seem to have added “inhales” to ostensibly make it more natural,
but the pauses and inhales (let alone the quality of the speech) are so off
the mark it just sounds really odd. If your voice sounds robotic already, a
fake breath only makes it worse.

~~~
jjeaff
Ya, weird. The breathing isn't really integrated with the speech. It sounds
like someone on a breathing machine, like Christopher Reeve when he would
pause as his machine took a breath for him.

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DoctorPenguin
Isn't glacier the product which seems very cheap if you only look at the
storage cost but is extremely expensive when retrieving the data? I remember
reading an article by someone who had to pay something like 2000 USD to
restore his data which wasn't even in the terrabytes. Although I might be
mistaken here.

~~~
dfrage
Amazon says the original retrieval pricing matched their cost, but was hard to
grok and easy to run up a huge bill if you didn't use it carefully and extract
data patiently.

They realized that was a mistake and significantly streamlined the pricing,
and with this Deep product it doesn't look like they've even supporting the
original somewhat opaque Glacier API, just S3.

If you're patient and can wait 48 hours for data, bulk storage retrieval is
cheap at $0.0025/GB and $0.025 per 1000 requests. The standard AWS $0.09/GB
egress is the really big cost, but if you have enough data you can mitigate
that with a Snowball. Not a big issue if you're recovering from a catastrophe
that destroyed all your local backups, it looks great as insurance for those
of us with modest time to recovery desires.

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amaccuish
Is this the service that is rumoured to be using bluray disc libraries?

~~~
allen37
Perhaps this is the case, but I remember digging deep one night and seeing a
picture of a StorageTek tape system on what I thought was an AWS page. I can't
remember the URL. Oracle is trying to compete in this space, so maybe I'm
misremembering.

~~~
kondro
I don't see Amazon locking themselves into an Oracle product given the bad
blood between them.

