S3 Intelligent-Tiering: Everything You Need to Know

27-02-2025 / Cost Optimization Strategies / 5 mins.

Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering Storage is ideal for data with unpredictable, unknown, or dynamic access patterns. But there's more to it than meets the eye.

Here's the key point: you access some files frequently, but not others. So if you can automatically determine the most appropriate storage tier for a given piece of data/object, you can move it accordingly.

What is S3 Intelligent-Tiering?

Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering Storage is ideal for data with unpredictable, unknown, or dynamic access patterns. But there's more to it than meets the eye.

Here's the key point: you access some files frequently, but not others. So if you can automatically determine the most appropriate storage tier for a given piece of data/object, you can move it accordingly.

What is S3 Intelligent-Tiering?

S3 Intelligent-Tiering is a storage class within the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) that helps move your data to the most cost-effective storage option without compromising your system's performance.

This service automatically moves frequently accessed data to a lower-cost storage tier and allows users to manually archive infrequently accessed data.

S3 Intelligent-Tiering is one of the six Amazon S3 storage classes, which include:

• S3 Standard Storage
• S3 Standard – Infrequent Access Storage
• S3 One Zone – Infrequent Access Storage
• S3 Glacier Storage
• S3 Glacier Deep Archive
• S3 Intelligent-Tiering Storage
  

How does Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering work?

Through continuous object monitoring and automation, S3 Intelligent-Tiering detects when certain data has not been accessed for a period of time, allowing it to be transferred to a lower-cost storage class. Data is moved to a specific tier based on the number of days elapsed since last access.

S3 Intelligent-Tiering has five access tiers based on data access frequency:

1. Frequent Access Tier
   • This is the default storage tier for new or recently transferred objects. All objects you access frequently or within 30 days remain here, offering high performance and low latency.
2. Infrequent Access Tier
   • Objects are automatically moved to this tier after 30 consecutive days without activity. This tier also offers low latency and high performance.
3. Archive Instant Access Tier
   • The service automatically moves objects to this tier if they have not been accessed for 90 consecutive days. This tier still provides millisecond access times, low latency, and high throughput rates.
4. Archive Access Tier
   • This tier allows you to move asynchronously accessible data that has not been used in the last 90 days. You can skip the Archive Instant Access tier and use this tier to save more money.
   • You can extend the time before data is moved to this tier, with a minimum of 90 days and a maximum of 730 days.
   • Retrieving data from this tier takes between three and five hours longer than the Archive Instant Access Tier, but storage is cheaper ($0.0036 vs. $0.0040 per GB).
5. Deep Archive Access Tier
   • Designed for asynchronously accessible data that has not been used for more than 180 consecutive days. You can also activate it manually and extend the last-access time up to 730 days.
   • This tier can save up to 99% in standard S3 storage costs. The trade-off is that accessing data can take up to 12 hours, compared to 3–5 hours for the Archive Access Tier.

In terms of performance, the Archive Access and Deep Archive Access tiers are equivalent to the Amazon S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval and Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive options.

When should you use S3 Intelligent-Tiering?

S3 Intelligent-Tiering is ideal for data with unpredictable usage patterns or changing or unknown access frequency. You can also use it as the default storage class for most workloads. However, it is especially well-suited for:

• New applications with unknown data access frequency.
• Data analytics use cases with unpredictable access frequency.
• Data lake use cases, offering cost-effective long-term storage with the flexibility to retrieve data in 5–12 hours.
• User-generated content, such as photos and videos, where it is difficult to predict which items will be accessed frequently.

Benefits of S3 Intelligent-Tiering

• Savings of up to 40% on standard S3 storage costs with millisecond access, high throughput, and low latency.
• 99.999999999% durability across multiple availability zones.
• No data retrieval charges.
• No minimum storage duration requirements.
• No charges for tier transitions.

Important note: The service has a cost of $0.0025 per 1,000 objects smaller than 128 KB for the required automation and monitoring. Objects smaller than 128 KB are not eligible for automatic transition and remain in the Frequent Access tier.

S3 Intelligent-Tiering Pricing

The monthly cost includes storage, data transfer, and requests. Some quick pricing highlights:

• Frequent Access Tier: $0.023/GB for the first 50 TB/month, $0.022/GB for the next 450 TB/month, $0.021/GB for over 500 TB/month.
• Infrequent Access Tier: $0.0125/GB per month.
• Archive Instant Access Tier: $0.004/GB per month.
• Archive Access Tier: $0.0036/GB per month.
• Deep Archive Access Tier: $0.00099/GB per month.