Regulatory archives must be retained 7 years, are retrieved at most once a year, and a retrieval time of several hours is acceptable. Which S3 storage class minimizes storage cost?
A.S3 Standard
Standard costs the most per GB-month and is designed for frequent access.
B.S3 Standard-IA
Standard-IA is for infrequent but millisecond-latency access, costing more than archive tiers.
C.S3 Glacier Deep Archive
Correct. Deep Archive is built for long-retention, rarely accessed data with hours-long retrieval.
D.S3 One Zone-IA
One Zone-IA lowers resilience (single AZ) and still costs more than Deep Archive for this access pattern.
Why this answer
S3 Glacier Deep Archive is the lowest-cost S3 storage class, designed for data accessed once or twice a year, with retrieval in hours. For 7-year archives with annual access and hours-long retrieval tolerance, it minimizes storage cost.
Correct answer: C · Last reviewed 2026-10-25
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