Cold Retrieval Latency
The minutes-to-hours delay when accessing data stored in S3 Glacier, Glacier Deep Archive, or equivalent cold storage tiers. Retrieval requires initiating a restore request and waiting for the data to become accessible.
Summary
The minutes-to-hours delay when accessing data stored in S3 Glacier, Glacier Deep Archive, or equivalent cold storage tiers. Retrieval requires initiating a restore request and waiting for the data to become accessible.
Cold retrieval latency is the cost of cheap storage. Glacier and Deep Archive offer dramatically lower storage costs but impose retrieval delays that make interactive access impossible. This creates a hard boundary between "queryable" and "archived" data in S3 architectures.
- Glacier retrieval is not just slow — it has three speed tiers with different costs: Expedited (1-5 minutes), Standard (3-5 hours), and Bulk (5-12 hours). Choosing the wrong tier wastes money or time.
- Data restored from Glacier has a temporary availability window. If the restored copy expires before it is consumed, the retrieval must be repeated.
constrained_byTiered Storage — cold tiers impose retrieval delaysrelated_toCold Scan Latency — cold retrieval is the extreme casescoped_toS3, Object Storage
Definition
The significant time delay (minutes to hours) required to retrieve data from cold or archive storage tiers (S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval, Glacier Deep Archive), which blocks time-sensitive workflows that unexpectedly need archived data.
Connections 3
Outbound 2
scoped_to2Inbound 1
constrained_by1Resources 2
S3 Glacier restore documentation covering retrieval tiers (Expedited, Standard, Bulk) and their latency characteristics.
S3 storage classes reference with retrieval latency and cost details for each tier from Standard to Deep Archive.