A compliance team must retain audit logs for 7 years. Retrievals happen rarely and can wait up to 12 hours. Which S3 storage class minimizes cost for this archive?
A.S3 Standard-IA
Standard-IA keeps millisecond access and costs far more for rarely-read archive data.
B.S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval
Flexible Retrieval restores in minutes-to-hours but costs more per GB than Deep Archive.
C.S3 Glacier Deep Archive
Correct. Deep Archive is purpose-built for multi-year archives tolerating up to 12-hour retrieval.
D.S3 Intelligent-Tiering
Intelligent-Tiering optimizes for changing access patterns; its archive tiers cost more than choosing Deep Archive directly.
Why this answer
S3 Glacier Deep Archive is the cheapest S3 storage class, designed for long-term regulatory/archival data with retrieval times up to 12 hours — matching the 7-year retention and rare-access scenario exactly.
Correct answer: C · Last reviewed 2026-10-25
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