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I was going to back up my photos to AWS Glacier before noticing that retrieval costs are multiple times the storage cost. I guess that is possibly OK for a back

by rb808 9y ago

I was going to back up my photos to AWS Glacier before noticing that retrieval costs are multiple times the storage cost. I guess that is possibly OK for a backup but scared me into a physical alternative. http://liangzan.net/aws-glacier-calculator/ http://liangzan.net/aws-glacier-calculator/

vgt 9y ago
Check out Google's Coldline https://cloud.google.com/storage/archival/ https://cloud.google.com/storage/archival/
- yeahokwhatever 9y ago
  Google Glacier, aka G2. I checked it out. I like that I don't have to do calculus to understand how I'll be billed, or write my own retrieval software.
  - vgt 9y ago
    Also nice to have sub-millisecond latency to first byte (versus multi-hour) and performance characteristics of normal GCS.. so you could run a rare MapReduce job on it just the same as regular GCS :)
  - Johnny555 9y ago
    AWS has greatly simplified their Glacier pricing from the inscrutable transfer rate pricing to more common sense latency based pricing. If you want your data back in < 5 minutes it's $0.03/GB, 3 - 5 hours, $0.01/GB, 5 - 12 hours, $0.0025/GB AWS Glacier is cheaper per month than Google ColdStorage, but Google doesn't charge more for faster access to your data. So maybe you still need that Calculus to figure out which is a better deal for your data access pattern.
    - ValentineC 9y ago
      This does not include standard AWS egress pricing, which is something like $92/TB.
      - Johnny555 9y ago
        Right, and it doesn't include standard GCE egress pricing, which is something like $120/TB. https://cloud.google.com/storage/pricing https://cloud.google.com/storage/pricing
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        Veratyr 9y ago
        Given TFA, it's probably more accurate to say $85/TB: https://cloud.google.com/network-tiers/pricing https://cloud.google.com/network-tiers/pricing
        Johnny555 9y ago
        Does that apply to storage egress? The storage pricing page lists only one network tier: https://cloud.google.com/storage/pricing https://cloud.google.com/storage/pricing
- comboy 9y ago
  99% availability seems not so "highly available" as they call it. It's just SLA, but that means if the service is down for 7 hours every month it still meets the availability SLA. I know it may not matter that much for backup, I'm just wondering why would they set the bar so low - i.e. how do they organize the storage that they had to set it so low. I'm guessing MAIDs but I still don't get it.
  - manigandham 9y ago
    That's for the coldline class. It's all the same GCS system and the top multi-region class has 99.95% availability https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/storage-classes#comparison_of_storage_classes https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/storage-classes#compar...
Johnny555 9y ago
You just said that you were looking to Glacier as a "back up", so isn't that a good use case for Glacier? One advantage of Amazon versus many other cloud backup providers is that (for a fee), they'll ship you your data on a hard disk if you need it in a hurry. Having cheap access to your 4TB of data may not be such a great deal if it takes 3 months to download it.
DisposableMike 9y ago
I'm fairly certain that the calculator you linked is incorrect. Unless I'm not understanding the Glacier pricing page, it should cost at most $1,240 to store 10TB for 30 days and then re-retrieve over the internet (even at the expedited retrieval rate). The calculator shows the same setup (albeit with some of the rate information hidden) as costing $3,934.91 Backblaze B2 has no retrieval cost, so the same setup (storing 10TB for a month, then downloading) would cost only $250 (less than 1/3 of the cheapest Glacier option). Glacier is really only a viable option if you're sticking within the same region (where transfer is free) or you plan to literally never retrieve your backups. Otherwise, B2 and other alternatives are much cheaper.
- toredash 9y ago
  B2 has retrieval cost, the first 10GB each month is free.
  - DisposableMike 9y ago
    I'm trying to use the nomenclature from the Glacier pricing page, where "transfer" is the verb to reference the cost per GB downloading the data from the remote provider. Glacier has an additional "retrieval" cost per GB that B2 and others do not (because they most likely have to physically retrieve a tape/HDD drive with your data on it). https://aws.amazon.com/glacier/pricing/ https://aws.amazon.com/glacier/pricing/ https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html
    - toredash 9y ago
      Sorry I don't get it. With B2 I have to pay if I want to say download 100GB of data in B2. From what I read, you say this isn't so. But the pricing page state otherwise
      - DisposableMike 9y ago
        B2 has 2 charges: $/GB to store the data, and $/GB to download it (uploading to both is free) Glacier has 3 charges: $/GB to store the data, $/GB to retrieve the data from "cold" storage, and $/GB to download it. Retrieval !== downloading ("transfer"). Retrieval is an additional cost to downloading ("transfer").
gumby 9y ago
FWIW Amazon drive will store any number of photos (or anything it thinks is a photo -- I havent looked to see if it looks at the file name or checks to see if it's a valid jpeg/png) for free. So if you're really backing up your photos that's an option.
- comboy 9y ago
  Yeah, I organized my backup around it. Then they decided that maybe they won't offer unlimited storage after all, and I better pay up or they are going to delete my files. Not falling for that again.
- and0 9y ago
  Doesn't Drive also forbid encryption, though?
  - gumby 9y ago
    I just checked the terms of service and they don't at all. They did ban rclone a while back but they said it was because of poor security in rclone itself, and haven't banned anything else. Interestingly they say you can't use the storage for commercial purposes (whatever that means).
    - Dylan16807 9y ago
      rclone was sharing an API key publicly. Not really a security flaw but understandable to block. Except that they shut down the ability for anyone to get API keys a while ago, so users can't get their own.
c0nsumer 9y ago
As a suggestion, I use Glacier (with Arq) as a tertiary backup. If I have to go to that it means a lot of other things failed and I'll be willing to pay the price.

by rb808 9y ago

vgt 9y ago

Check out Google's Coldline https://cloud.google.com/storage/archival/ https://cloud.google.com/storage/archival/

yeahokwhatever 9y ago
Google Glacier, aka G2. I checked it out. I like that I don't have to do calculus to understand how I'll be billed, or write my own retrieval software.
- vgt 9y ago
  Also nice to have sub-millisecond latency to first byte (versus multi-hour) and performance characteristics of normal GCS.. so you could run a rare MapReduce job on it just the same as regular GCS :)
- Johnny555 9y ago
  AWS has greatly simplified their Glacier pricing from the inscrutable transfer rate pricing to more common sense latency based pricing. If you want your data back in < 5 minutes it's $0.03/GB, 3 - 5 hours, $0.01/GB, 5 - 12 hours, $0.0025/GB AWS Glacier is cheaper per month than Google ColdStorage, but Google doesn't charge more for faster access to your data. So maybe you still need that Calculus to figure out which is a better deal for your data access pattern.
  - ValentineC 9y ago
    This does not include standard AWS egress pricing, which is something like $92/TB.
    - Johnny555 9y ago
      Right, and it doesn't include standard GCE egress pricing, which is something like $120/TB. https://cloud.google.com/storage/pricing https://cloud.google.com/storage/pricing
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - Veratyr 9y ago
        Given TFA, it's probably more accurate to say $85/TB: https://cloud.google.com/network-tiers/pricing https://cloud.google.com/network-tiers/pricing
        Johnny555 9y ago
        Does that apply to storage egress? The storage pricing page lists only one network tier: https://cloud.google.com/storage/pricing https://cloud.google.com/storage/pricing
comboy 9y ago
99% availability seems not so "highly available" as they call it. It's just SLA, but that means if the service is down for 7 hours every month it still meets the availability SLA. I know it may not matter that much for backup, I'm just wondering why would they set the bar so low - i.e. how do they organize the storage that they had to set it so low. I'm guessing MAIDs but I still don't get it.
- manigandham 9y ago
  That's for the coldline class. It's all the same GCS system and the top multi-region class has 99.95% availability https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/storage-classes#comparison_of_storage_classes https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/storage-classes#compar...

Johnny555 9y ago

You just said that you were looking to Glacier as a "back up", so isn't that a good use case for Glacier? One advantage of Amazon versus many other cloud backup providers is that (for a fee), they'll ship you your data on a hard disk if you need it in a hurry. Having cheap access to your 4TB of data may not be such a great deal if it takes 3 months to download it.

DisposableMike 9y ago

I'm fairly certain that the calculator you linked is incorrect. Unless I'm not understanding the Glacier pricing page, it should cost at most $1,240 to store 10TB for 30 days and then re-retrieve over the internet (even at the expedited retrieval rate). The calculator shows the same setup (albeit with some of the rate information hidden) as costing $3,934.91 Backblaze B2 has no retrieval cost, so the same setup (storing 10TB for a month, then downloading) would cost only $250 (less than 1/3 of the cheapest Glacier option). Glacier is really only a viable option if you're sticking within the same region (where transfer is free) or you plan to literally never retrieve your backups. Otherwise, B2 and other alternatives are much cheaper.

toredash 9y ago
B2 has retrieval cost, the first 10GB each month is free.
- DisposableMike 9y ago
  I'm trying to use the nomenclature from the Glacier pricing page, where "transfer" is the verb to reference the cost per GB downloading the data from the remote provider. Glacier has an additional "retrieval" cost per GB that B2 and others do not (because they most likely have to physically retrieve a tape/HDD drive with your data on it). https://aws.amazon.com/glacier/pricing/ https://aws.amazon.com/glacier/pricing/ https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html
  - toredash 9y ago
    Sorry I don't get it. With B2 I have to pay if I want to say download 100GB of data in B2. From what I read, you say this isn't so. But the pricing page state otherwise
    - DisposableMike 9y ago
      B2 has 2 charges: $/GB to store the data, and $/GB to download it (uploading to both is free) Glacier has 3 charges: $/GB to store the data, $/GB to retrieve the data from "cold" storage, and $/GB to download it. Retrieval !== downloading ("transfer"). Retrieval is an additional cost to downloading ("transfer").

gumby 9y ago

FWIW Amazon drive will store any number of photos (or anything it thinks is a photo -- I havent looked to see if it looks at the file name or checks to see if it's a valid jpeg/png) for free. So if you're really backing up your photos that's an option.

comboy 9y ago
Yeah, I organized my backup around it. Then they decided that maybe they won't offer unlimited storage after all, and I better pay up or they are going to delete my files. Not falling for that again.
and0 9y ago
Doesn't Drive also forbid encryption, though?
- gumby 9y ago
  I just checked the terms of service and they don't at all. They did ban rclone a while back but they said it was because of poor security in rclone itself, and haven't banned anything else. Interestingly they say you can't use the storage for commercial purposes (whatever that means).
  - Dylan16807 9y ago
    rclone was sharing an API key publicly. Not really a security flaw but understandable to block. Except that they shut down the ability for anyone to get API keys a while ago, so users can't get their own.

c0nsumer 9y ago

As a suggestion, I use Glacier (with Arq) as a tertiary backup. If I have to go to that it means a lot of other things failed and I'll be willing to pay the price.