A media company stores raw project files in Amazon S3. Files are accessed heavily for the first 60 days, occasionally for legal review during the next six months, and must be retained for 7 years. Retrieval for the oldest files can take hours. Which three actions should the architect recommend? Select three.

Store the same files in EBS snapshots instead of S3 to lower archive costs.

EBS snapshots are for block storage backups, not object lifecycle management, and they do not match the access pattern described here.

Replicate the bucket to another Region to reduce storage charges.

Cross-Region replication improves resilience, not storage cost. It also increases cost because it duplicates data and replication traffic.

What does this SAA-C03 question test?

Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: Transition objects to S3 Standard-IA after 60 days. — The lifecycle should move the objects from a warmer class to a cheaper infrequent-access class after the active period, then to a deep archive class once legal review ends, and finally expire them when the retention policy ends. This balances access speed and storage spend across the full file lifetime. The scenario explicitly allows hours-long retrieval for the oldest files, which makes Deep Archive an appropriate end state. Why others are wrong: EBS snapshots are not a replacement for S3 object lifecycle policies and would be operationally awkward for large media libraries. Replicating to another Region is a resilience choice, not a cost optimization, and it typically increases the total bill rather than lowering it.

What should I do if I get this SAA-C03 question wrong?

Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.