This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Hari Karthigasu
Context
Storing objects in S3 for an extended period increases both storage size and cost. Especially when you don't access them frequently. You can configure life cycle rules or implement a custom solution to move them between the storage classes, but it may come with drawbacks.
S3 Intelligent-Tiering
S3 Intelligent-Tiering moves an object to low-cost S3 storage based on its access frequency pattern, while preserving low latency and high throughput.
Frequent Access, Infrequent Access, and Archive Instant Access tiers are the three access tiers that S3 Intelligent-Tiering storage class automatically stores the objects.
Frequent Access tier is optimized for frequent access, Infrequent Access tier is a lower-cost tier optimized for infrequent access, and Archive Instant Access, which is a very low-cost tier optimized for rarely accessed data.
Your object(s) will float across these 3 tiers depending on your object access frequency patterns. They all provide low latency and high-throughput performance to your objects.
If an object in the Infrequent Access tier or Archive Instant Access tier is accessed later, it is automatically moved back to the Frequent Access tier.
The Archive Access tier and the Deep Archive Access tier are optional and operate only when activated if you want to get the lowest storage cost for data that can be accessed in minutes to hours.
If not activated, your objects will stay in the Archive Instant Access tier, which provides you with low latency and high-throughput performance to your objects.
Frequent Access Tier
|
- Object has not been accessed for 30 days
|
Infrequent Access Tier
|
- Object has not been accessed for 90 days
|
Archive Instant Access Tier
Activate S3 Intelligent-Tiering
When you create a new S3 bucket, straight away you can select the storage class as S3 Intelligent-Tiering. For an existing bucket, create a life cycle rule to move the objects to S3 Intelligent-Tiering.
Visualization
After activating S3 Intelligent-Tiering for an existing bucket,
The (image below shows) objects have been transferred to the S3 Intelligent-Tiering while the bucket is scaling.
Orange - Standard Rest - S3 Intelligent-Tiering
However, you may be surprised after seeing the huge spike in the following month's bill. It'll be double the amount from the previous month.
S3 Intelligent-Tiering was enabled in month 7, and the cost doubled in month 8.
- WHY?
During the first month(s), the life cycle rule transfers the objects from the STANDARD to the S3 INTELLIGENT-TIERING class.
$0.01 per 1,000 transitions to Intelligent Tiering -> So, if you have 200 million objects, you'll pay~ $2000. In addition to that,
S3 Intelligent-Tiering monitors objects that are more than 128KB in size to transfer among the storage classes. $0.0025 per 1,000 Objects per month in Intelligent-Tiering
Nevertheless, it'll be hugely beneficial in the long run for large-scale S3 buckets, which have objects of unpredictable/fluctuating access patterns.
If you see the graph, the cost is slowly going down after the 8th month and by the 16th month, it becomes lower than 0th month.
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Hari Karthigasu
Hari Karthigasu | Sciencx (2025-08-27T20:46:52+00:00) Why S3 Intelligent-Tiering Should Be Your Default Storage Class for Large-Scale Buckets?. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2025/08/27/why-s3-intelligent-tiering-should-be-your-default-storage-class-for-large-scale-buckets/
Please log in to upload a file.
There are no updates yet.
Click the Upload button above to add an update.