Backup storage guides
42 guides, each answering one question about the bill: what downloads, requests and minimums cost, how storage classes compare, what a restore costs and how long it takes, and how to keep backups immutable.
What each charge does to the bill
Downloads, requests, minimums and free allowances: the lines that decide a backup bill.
- API request costs for backups: Class A and Class BUploads, listings and reads are billed per thousand requests, so a backup tool that writes many small objects can pay more for requests than for storage.
- Committed capacity pricing across 18 object storage vendorsWhich object storage vendors sell reserved or prepaid capacity, how it compares with paying as you go, and what you commit to when you sign.
- Egress by destination: internet, region, cross-region, CDNDownloading to the internet, to another region or through a CDN are billed differently: each vendor's rate for every destination your restore can take.
- Free egress explained: which storage downloads for freeSome vendors never charge for downloads and others only up to a multiple of what you store: the four kinds of free egress and the catch in each.
- Object storage free tiers compared across 18 vendorsWhich object storage free tiers last and which are trials, how much each covers, and what it leaves out when you start a backup.
- Minimum storage duration and early deletion chargesCold storage classes bill each object for a minimum number of days even if you delete it sooner: every vendor's minimum and what early deletion costs.
- Object size economics: billable floors and per-object costsSmall objects cost more than their bytes: minimum billable object sizes, per-object metadata and per-request restores, and how to price them for a backup.
- Object storage egress fees by providerWhat each of 18 object storage vendors charges to download your data: free, free up to a multiple of storage, a monthly allowance, or a per-GB rate.
- Retrieval vs egress: two charges, two different metersRetrieval is the fee to make cold data readable and egress is the fee to download it; a restore from an archive class pays both.
- S3 egress cost: AWS data transfer out pricingWhat AWS charges to send S3 data to the internet, to another region or through CloudFront, with the free monthly allowance and how the tiers step down.
- Object storage pricing history: dated price changesEvery change we have recorded in object storage prices, with the date it was seen and what it did to the bill.
- How to read a restore receiptWhat each line of a restore bill means: storage, retrieval, restore requests, the temporary copy, download charges and the total.
Storage classes and archive tiers
Each vendor's classes side by side, and how much you can read before a colder class stops saving.
- What a retrieval tier is, and what it changesA retrieval tier sets how fast an archived object becomes readable and what that costs; it does not change where or how the data is stored.
- What a storage class is, and why the name is not enoughA storage class sets an object's price, minimum days, retrieval fee and access speed, and two classes with similar names can bill very differently.
- What cold storage is, and what it costs to readCold storage costs less per GB to keep but adds retrieval fees, minimum days and delays, so it saves money only on data you rarely read.
- What archive rehydration is, and what it chargesRehydration makes an archived object readable again by copying or moving it to an online tier; it takes hours and is billed per GB.
- Archive storage pricing compared, restore included24 cold and archive storage classes compared on the price to keep data and the price to read it back, with minimum days and how long a restore waits.
- Azure Blob Storage pricing: Hot, Cool, Cold, ArchiveAzure Blob Hot, Cool, Cold and Archive tiers compared on storage price, minimum days, rehydration time and what reading the data back costs.
- Cloudflare R2 Standard vs Infrequent Access pricingR2 Infrequent Access is cheaper to keep but charges for every GB read and bills at least 30 days, so it pays only when you rarely read the data back.
- DigitalOcean Spaces: Standard and Cold StorageDigitalOcean Spaces Standard and Cold Storage compared on storage, retrieval and download prices, and the charges DigitalOcean does not publish.
- Google Cloud Storage classes and pricing comparedStandard, Nearline, Coldline and Archive compared on storage price, retrieval fee and minimum days, and where each class stops saving money.
- Oracle OCI tiers: Standard, Infrequent Access, ArchiveOracle OCI Standard, Infrequent Access and Archive compared on storage, retrieval and restore time, and how much you can read before each stops saving.
- OVHcloud Object Storage pricing: all five classesOVHcloud's five object storage classes compared on storage, retrieval and minimum days, with free downloads and where each class stops saving money.
- Amazon S3 storage classes compared: price and break-evenEvery S3 class from Standard to Glacier Deep Archive compared on storage, retrieval, minimum days and small-object charges, and where each stops paying.
- Scaleway: Standard Multi-AZ, One Zone and GlacierScaleway Standard Multi-AZ, One Zone and Glacier compared in euros, and how much of your data you can read back before Glacier stops being cheaper.
- Tigris storage classes, from Standard to ArchiveTigris Standard, Infrequent Access, Archive and Instant Retrieval compared, with free downloads and where each colder class stops saving money.
- Vultr object storage tiers, and what they really changeVultr's five object storage tiers are performance bundles rather than access tiers: what each includes, what it costs, and which suits a backup.
- Glacier Deep Archive cost calculator, restore includedWhat S3 Glacier Deep Archive, Flexible Retrieval and Instant Retrieval cost to keep and to read back, with the retrieval wait and the minimum days.
Restores, recovery time and capacity
What the month you restore costs, how long it takes, and how much a retention policy stores.
- Backup storage capacity calculator: retention and growthTurn your data size, daily change and retention into the capacity you will actually store and pay for, with full, incremental and monthly copies.
- Object storage migration cost: what leaving costsWhat it costs to move backups out of each vendor: reading every object, downloading it, and any early-deletion charge for leaving before the minimum.
- Restore cost calculator: what getting backups back costsA restore adds retrieval, restore requests, a temporary readable copy and download charges to the month; price yours line by line for any vendor.
- Restore time calculator: how long a cloud restore takesA restore takes the vendor's preparation time plus the download at your bandwidth; at 100 Mbps, 1 TB takes about 22 hours before any archive wait.
Immutability, durability and where data lives
Object Lock, WORM retention, SLAs and regions: what protects a backup, and where it sits.
- Data residency and compliance by object storage vendorWhere each of 18 object storage vendors keeps data, which regions it sells, and what it puts in writing about residency and certifications.
- Object storage durability and SLAs comparedDurability is a design target and an SLA pays service credits for downtime: what each object storage vendor promises, and what it pays when it misses.
- Regional pricing and residency by object storage providerWhich regions each object storage vendor sells, where US and EU prices differ, and which regional prices can be compared like for like.
- Object Lock explained: immutable backups by vendorObject Lock stops a stored backup version from being changed or deleted until a date you set: how it works and which vendors document it.
- WORM storage explained: write once, read many backupsWORM storage keeps data from being changed or deleted for a retention period: how vendors enforce it, and what reading the data back still costs.
- Immutable backup storage: 18 vendors comparedWhich object storage vendors document immutable backups with Object Lock or WORM retention, how to set it up, and what restoring still costs.
Choosing the kind of service
Object storage, managed backup and S3 compatibility: what each kind of service includes.
- What object storage is, and what it does not includeObject storage keeps files as objects in buckets behind an API and bills capacity, requests and downloads; it is where a backup goes, not the backup software.
- What S3-compatible storage means in practiceS3-compatible means a vendor speaks the Amazon S3 API, so most backup tools connect to it; features such as Object Lock and lifecycle rules can still differ.
- Backblaze B2 or Backblaze Computer Backup?Backblaze B2 is storage you pay for per TB and fill with your own backup tool; Computer Backup is a per-computer service with its own software.
- Object storage vs managed backup: cost boundariesObject storage bills per TB and needs your own backup software; managed backup bills per device and includes it. How to compare the two costs.
Vendor by vendor
What each vendor bills, the bill for 10 TB and a full restore, and the rules its pricing page does not lead with.
Head to head
Two vendors on one workload, and where the cheaper one changes.
- Amazon S3 vs Azure Blob Storage
- Amazon S3 vs Backblaze B2
- Amazon S3 vs Cloudflare R2
- Amazon S3 vs Google Cloud Storage
- Amazon S3 vs Wasabi
- Backblaze B2 vs IDrive e2
- Backblaze B2 vs Scaleway Object Storage
- Backblaze B2 vs Storj
- Cloudflare R2 vs Backblaze B2
- Cloudflare R2 vs Hetzner Object Storage
- Cloudflare R2 vs S3 Glacier Deep Archive
- Cloudflare R2 vs Wasabi
- IDrive e2 vs Storj
- Wasabi vs Backblaze B2
- Wasabi vs IDrive e2
- Wasabi vs Storj