Cloud Digital Leader Google Cloud Products and Services Practice Question
A company wants to store archived data that must be retained for 10 years. They expect to access it less than once a year. Which Cloud Storage class is the MOST cost-effective?
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
✓
Archive
Archive storage is designed for data accessed less than once a year, with the lowest storage cost but higher retrieval fees and a 365-day minimum storage duration. Coldline has a 90-day minimum and higher cost. Nearline and Standard are more expensive and have shorter minimums.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Standard
Why it's wrong here
Standard storage class is optimized for frequently accessed data and has the highest storage cost among all classes. For a 10-year archive with retrieval expected less than once a year, paying the premium per-GB-month storage would make the solution unnecessarily expensive. Unlike Archive, Standard does not have a minimum retention period, but the real issue is cost inefficiency for cold data that will almost never be read.
- ✗
Coldline
Why it's wrong here
Coldline offers a 90-day minimum retention and is intended for data accessed no more than once a quarter. While this company's access pattern is even rarer than quarterly, Coldline's storage price is still noticeably higher than Archive's, and its minimum retention period does not align with the long-term 10-year requirement. Choosing Coldline would result in a higher storage bill with no offsetting benefit, because Archive is specifically designed for access frequencies of once a year or less.
- ✓
Archive
Why this is correct
The Archive storage class is designed for data accessed less than once a year, with a minimum 180-day retention period that aligns with the 10-year requirement. Its retrieval cost is high, but the lowest storage price among classes makes it most cost-effective when access is rare, satisfying the constraint of infrequent retrieval.
- ✗
Nearline
Why it's wrong here
Nearline has a 30-day minimum retention and targets data accessed less than once a month, but the archived data here will be accessed less than once a year. The per-GB storage cost for Nearline is greater than Archive, so using it for a decade of low-touch archival data would generate avoidable expense. Even though Nearline has a shorter minimum retention than Archive, that flexibility is irrelevant for a 10-year retention scenario and does not compensate for the higher price when access is extremely rare.
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
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Cloud vs On-Premises Total Cost Analysis
Key term
Data
Data is raw, unprocessed information, like numbers, words, or measurements, that can be stored, processed, and analyzed by computers.
Key term
Storage class
A storage class is a category of data storage that defines how data is stored, accessed, retrieved, and billed in a cloud environment.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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