AWS cuts costs for infrequently accessed S3 data

Amazon Web Services has introduced a new option for Simple Storage Service (S3) aimed at customers who don't require frequent access to the files and documents they upload to the cloud.

Called S3 Standard - Infrequent Access (Standard-IA), the new option came about after AWSanalysed customer's data access patterns over time. 

It found many customers store backups and log files in the cloud, but almost never read them. Other customer data is accessed frequently immediately after it has been uploaded, but not after the initial analysis or use of the information has finished.

With the new product, customers can set up data lifecycle policies that start by storing files in the Standard S3 storage class, move them to Standard-IA after a given period of time, and then to the Glacier archival service once the information no longer has to be accessed regularly.

The infrequently accessed data option for S3 will come with all existing features of the standard storage service. It is available in all AWS regions.

Standard-IA will cost US$0.0125 per gigabyte and month, and carries a 30-day minimum storage duration for billing. Retrieval of data costs US$0.01 per gigabyte, with transfer and request charges on top.

AWS has also changed its billing so that the smallest billable object is 128 kilobytes. Anything smaller than that will cost the same as 128KB-sized objects.

At the same time, AWS said it had taken the axe to pricing for its Glacier backup and archival service.

From today, customers will pay US$0.007 cents per gigabyte and month, down from US$0.01 cents, in the United States East/Northern Virginia, US West/Oregon and Europe/Ireland AWS regions.