Optimize your storage costs for rarely-accessed files with Amazon EFS Archive

This article introduces EFS Archive, a new cost-optimized storage class for Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) designed for long-lived data that is rarely accessed.

Specifically, the article covers:

• Amazon EFS now supports three Regional storage classes: EFS Standard (for active data), EFS Infrequent Access (for data accessed a few times a quarter), and EFS Archive (for data accessed a few times a year or less).
• EFS lifecycle management can automatically migrate files across storage classes based on their access patterns, allowing a single shared file system to contain a mix of active and inactive data.
• Using EFS Archive can optimize costs for workloads with large file-based datasets that contain a mix of active and inactive data, such as user shares, ML training datasets, SaaS applications, and data retained for regulatory compliance.
• To use EFS Archive, configure lifecycle management policies to transition files to EFS IA or EFS Archive based on access patterns, and enable files to transition back to Standard storage on first access.
• EFS Archive offers 50% lower storage cost than EFS IA with a higher request charge when data is accessed, providing a cost-optimized solution for colder, rarely-accessed files.