Amazon Glacier
Amazon Glacier
Amazon S3 Glacier API provides ultra-low-cost archive storage — long-term retention, compliance archive, DR backup; retrieval has minutes-to-hours latency.
Ultra-low storage cost ($0.004/GB/month, ~1/5 of S3 Standard)
Retrieval takes 1 minute to 12 hours (varies by retrieval tier)
CreateVault to create a vault, UploadArchive to upload. AWS now recommends using S3 Glacier storage class directly (specify STORAGE_CLASS=GLACIER when PUT to S3).
Uptime · 30-day window
GitHub activity
About this API
S3 Glacier is AWS's cheapest storage — designed for "stored but rarely read" data. Typical scenarios: regulator-mandated 7-year financial data retention, years-old log archives, disaster-recovery last-resort backups, movie masters and similar long-term assets. Storage cost $0.004/GB/month (S3 Standard is $0.023); 1TB for a year costs about $50. Trade-offs are retrieval latency and fees: submit retrieval request (Expedited 1-5 min, Standard 3-5 hours, Bulk 5-12 hours), pay retrieval fees. Suits "write-heavy, read-rare" scenarios. Vault Lock makes archives immutable (essential for legal/regulatory "cannot delete within 7 years"). AWS now recommends S3 Glacier storage class (place directly in S3 bucket, skipping standalone Glacier API complexity); standalone Glacier API retained for legacy users.
What you can build
- 17+ year compliance archives
- 2Cold data backup (e.g. logs from years ago)
- 3Disaster recovery last-resort backup
- 4Legal forensics retention
Strengths & limitations
Strengths
- Ultra-low storage cost ($0.004/GB/month, ~1/5 of S3 Standard)
- 11 nines durability
- Vault Lock for immutable archive (compliance requirement)
Limitations
- Retrieval takes 1 minute to 12 hours (varies by retrieval tier)
- Per-GB retrieval fees
- Not cost-effective for small files
Example request
curl https://github.com/mermade/aws2openapi/<endpoint>Getting started
CreateVault to create a vault, UploadArchive to upload. AWS now recommends using S3 Glacier storage class directly (specify STORAGE_CLASS=GLACIER when PUT to S3).
FAQ
Glacier vs. S3 Glacier storage class?+
S3 Glacier storage class (integrated within S3) is simpler. Standalone Glacier API is for legacy projects only.
How fast is retrieval?+
Expedited (1-5 min, most expensive), Standard (3-5 hours, common), Bulk (5-12 hours, cheapest).
Technical details
- Auth type
- unknown
- Pricing
- unknown
- Protocols
- REST
- SDKs
- python, javascript, go, java, csharp
- Response time
- 11 ms
- Last health check
- 5/12/2026, 7:36:33 AM
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