Archive Storage
ELI5 — The Vibe Check
Archive storage is the cheapest tier of cloud storage for data you almost never access. Think regulatory compliance records, old backups, and raw research data. Storing it costs almost nothing, but accessing it costs more and takes longer. It's the cloud equivalent of those boxes in your garage labeled '2018 tax docs.'
Real Talk
Archive storage is a storage tier optimized for long-term retention of infrequently accessed data. All major clouds offer it: AWS Glacier, GCP Archive Storage, Azure Archive Blob. Costs are typically 10-20x cheaper than standard storage but with higher retrieval costs, longer access times, and minimum storage duration requirements.
When You'll Hear This
"Move anything older than 2 years to archive storage to cut costs." / "Archive storage has a 180-day minimum — don't put anything there you'll need soon."
Related Terms
Backup
A database backup is a saved copy of your data at a specific point in time.
Compliance
Compliance — pheeew, who needs it? Well, regulators. And lawyers. And anyone who doesn't want a multi-million dollar fine. If you don't know what it means,
Glacier
Glacier is AWS's deep-freeze storage. It's absurdly cheap — we're talking fractions of a penny per GB per month. The catch?
Object Lifecycle
Object lifecycle policies automatically manage your cloud storage objects as they age.
Storage Classes
Storage classes are tiers of cloud storage with different price/performance tradeoffs. Hot storage is fast and expensive (for stuff you access every day).