S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval
- What it is
- The archival Amazon S3 Glacier class that still returns objects in milliseconds — archive pricing, no waiting.
- Numbers
- 11 nines durability, multi-AZ, 99.9% availability.
- Minimum billable storage duration 90 days; per-GB retrieval fee higher than S3 Standard-IA.
- When to use it
- Archives touched about once a quarter but needed instantly on the rare occasion they are: medical images, news media archives, user-generated content going cold.
- Not to be confused with
- S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval — cheaper storage, retrieval in minutes to hours.
- S3 Standard-IA — pricier storage, cheaper retrieval, 30-day minimum. The crossover is roughly quarterly access.
- Exam signal
- “Archive” + “must be available in milliseconds” → Instant Retrieval.