SAP-C03 practice question: Storage tiering and volume costs (S3 classes, lifecycle, gp3)
Cost-Optimized Architecture Design A free question from our original SAP-C03 practice exam. Try it, then open the answer to see why each option is right or wrong.
A media company keeps a 300 TB archive of video files in the Amazon S3 Standard storage class. Some files are watched every week, many are not opened for months, and the access pattern cannot be predicted per file. The archive grows by about 10 TB each month.
The team wants the storage cost to fall without a person reviewing each file, and it does not want to pay a surprise retrieval charge when a rarely used file is opened.
Which storage approach meets these requirements?
Choose one answer.
AA. Move every object to the S3 Glacier Deep Archive storage class with a lifecycle rule, so that the whole archive is billed at the lowest storage rate that Amazon S3 offers.
BB. Keep the objects in S3 Standard and rely on the team to move the files it knows are old to a cheaper class each quarter.
CC. Move every object to the S3 One Zone-IA storage class, which costs less than Standard for all files.
DD. Store the archive in S3 Intelligent-Tiering, which moves each object between access tiers based on its use, with no retrieval charges in the frequent and infrequent tiers.
Show the answer and explanation
Answer: D
A. Wrong: Deep Archive has long retrieval times and retrieval charges, and the weekly-viewed files would be slow and costly to open. The unpredictable pattern makes this a poor fit.
B. Wrong: A manual quarterly review needs someone to review each file, which the team wants to avoid. It also leaves the storage at the Standard rate for the files nobody reviews.
C. Wrong: One Zone-IA stores data in a single Availability Zone and charges retrieval fees, so the archive loses resilience and the opened files cost more. It does not suit the unpredictable pattern.
D. Right: Correct. Intelligent-Tiering moves each object automatically based on observed access, with no per-file review. The frequent and infrequent access tiers have no retrieval charges, so opening an older file does not add a surprise fee.
Explanation
Intelligent-Tiering moves each object based on its own access pattern with no per-file review and no retrieval fees in its frequent and infrequent tiers. Deep Archive and One Zone-IA add retrieval costs or lose resilience, and Standard with manual moves leaves cost on the table.
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