Why Tiered Storage Exists

Why is there hierarchical storage?

Different types of data exhibit varying usage patterns and access frequencies and follow a natural aging curve. As data ages, its access frequency diminishes, eventually entering an archived state. Hierarchical storage allows for the allocation of different types of data into various storage classes, reducing overall storage costs while fulfilling service requirements.

BOS provides six storage types tailored to different storage scenarios: standard storage - multi-AZ, standard storage, infrequent access storage - multi-AZ, infrequent access storage, cold storage, and archive storage. Each storage type has different costs and minimum storage durations, allowing you to select the most suitable option based on your specific needs.

Standard storage-multi-AZ

• Standard storage-multi-AZ provides users with highly reliable, highly available, and high-performance object storage services;
• A copy of data is synchronously stored in 3 availability zones, resulting in extremely high data reliability and cross-computer room disaster recovery capabilities;
• Standard storage-multi-AZ is suitable for scenarios that require frequent reading and have extremely high reliability requirements;

Standard storage

• Standard storage provides users with highly reliable, highly available, and high-performance object storage services;
• Standard Storage is suitable for scenarios that require frequent data reading;

Infrequent access storage-multi-AZ

• Infrequent access storage-multi-AZ provides users with highly reliable object storage services with lower storage costs;
• A copy of data is synchronously stored in 3 availability zones, resulting in extremely high data reliability and cross-computer room disaster recovery capabilities;
• Infrequent access storage is suitable for data that needs to be stored for a long time and accessed less frequently;
• Compared with standard storage, infrequent access storage is basically the same in terms of online access performance, durability, and availability, but its price is much lower than that of Standard Storage;

Infrequent access storage

• Infrequent access storage provides users with highly reliable object storage services with lower storage costs;
• Infrequent access storage is suitable for data that needs to be stored for a long time and accessed less frequently;
• Compared with standard storage, infrequent access storage is basically the same in terms of online access performance, durability, and availability, but its price is much lower than that of Standard Storage;

Cold storage

• Cold storage provides users with highly reliable object storage services with low storage costs;
• Cold storage is suitable for data that needs to be stored for a long time and accessed seldom;
• Compared with standard storage, infrequent access Storage is basically the same in terms of online access performance, durability, and availability, but its price is much lower than that of Standard Storage;

Archive storage

• Archive storage provides users with highly reliable object storage services with extremely low storage costs;
• Archive storage is suitable for data that needs to be stored for a long time and hardly accessed;
• Compared with standard storage, infrequent access storage, and cold storage, archive storage is basically the same in terms of durability and availability, but its storage price is much lower than that of Standard storage, infrequent access storage, and cold storage;

How to set the storage class?

• You can specify the storage class of a file when uploading it, or specify the storage class for all files in the bucket at one time when creating the bucket;
• If you do not specify the storage class when uploading a file, the file will inherit the default storage class of the bucket;
• If the storage class selected when uploading a file differs from the bucket's default storage class, the file will adopt the storage class set during the upload process.

Introduction to storage classes

For more information about storage classes, please refer to Introduction to Storage Classes.