EBS Snapshot Archive

Old EBS snapshots kept in the standard tier can be moved to the archive tier for ~75% storage savings. This is ideal for snapshots retained for compliance or disaster recovery that are rarely accessed.

Implementation Effort: Low - Estimated time: less than 30 minutes. Single API call to move a snapshot to archive tier.

What We Detect

• Archive-eligible snapshots -- Completed snapshots older than 90 days still stored in the standard tier, where archiving would reduce costs significantly

Why It Matters

Standard snapshot storage costs $0.05/GB-month. Archive tier costs $0.0125/GB-month -- a 75% reduction. For organizations with hundreds of retained snapshots, this adds up fast.

Recommendations

1. Review snapshot retention policies
2. Move old snapshots to archive tier via console or CLI
3. Note that restoring from archive takes 24-72 hours and incurs a retrieval fee, so only archive snapshots you rarely need to restore

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