SAA-C03 Design Cost-Optimized Architectures Practice Question

A media company stores 50 TB of finalized video masters in Amazon S3 that must be retained for seven years for regulatory compliance. The files are accessed only during occasional legal audits, roughly once every two years, and retrieval latency of several hours is acceptable. The company wants the LOWEST possible storage cost while preserving durability. Which storage class should they choose?

⚠ Common exam trap

The trap here is reaching for a mid-tier archive class or an Infrequent Access class out of habit, when the stated access frequency of once every two years and tolerance for hours of latency points squarely at the cheapest archive tier.

Answer choices

Why each option matters

Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.

Correct answer & explanation

✓

S3 Glacier Deep Archive

Data accessed less than once per year and tolerant of hours-long retrieval belongs in S3 Glacier Deep Archive, which offers the lowest per-GB storage price in S3 while retaining eleven nines of durability. Glacier Flexible Retrieval and the IA classes cost more per GB and target more frequent access patterns, so they would increase seven-year spend without adding value.

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

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S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval
Why it's wrong here
S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval costs more per GB than Deep Archive and is intended for data accessed about once or twice per year with retrieval in minutes to hours. Because these masters are touched only about once every two years, the higher storage rate is unnecessary. Choosing it would raise the seven-year cost without providing any benefit the company actually needs.
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S3 Standard-Infrequent Access
Why it's wrong here
S3 Standard-IA is meant for data accessed roughly monthly and charges a per-GB retrieval fee plus a 30-day minimum duration. For masters accessed once every two years, the per-GB storage rate is far higher than archive classes, so total cost over seven years would be dramatically larger. It is the wrong cost tier despite offering millisecond retrieval the company does not require.
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S3 One Zone-IA
Why it's wrong here
S3 One Zone-IA stores data in a single Availability Zone, so it does not provide the same durability as multi-AZ classes and is unsuitable for compliance archives. It also costs more per GB than Glacier Deep Archive and imposes a 30-day minimum duration plus retrieval fees. It fails both the durability expectation for regulated records and the lowest-cost requirement.
✓
S3 Glacier Deep Archive
Why this is correct
S3 Glacier Deep Archive is designed for long-term retention of data accessed less than once per year, offering the lowest storage cost of any S3 class while maintaining eleven nines of durability. Retrieval takes up to 12 hours, which fits the acceptable latency stated for rare legal audits. For 50 TB held seven years with almost no access, this class minimizes spend without sacrificing durability.

Quick reference

AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison

Storage Class	Min Duration	Retrieval	Use Case
S3 Standard	None	Immediate	Frequently accessed data
S3 Standard-IA	30 days	Immediate	Infrequent access, rapid retrieval
S3 One Zone-IA	30 days	Immediate	Non-critical infrequent data
S3 Intelligent-Tiering	None	Immediate–hours	Unknown or changing access patterns
S3 Glacier Instant	90 days	Milliseconds	Archive with instant retrieval
S3 Glacier Flexible	90 days	Minutes–hours	Archive, flexible retrieval
S3 Glacier Deep Archive	180 days	Hours	Long-term compliance archive

Go deeper

SAA-C03 Design Cost-Optimized Architectures Practice Question

Why each option matters

Option-by-option breakdown

AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison

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