Read/Write cost of archived blobs on Azure Storage Gen2

Question

This documents here details the price for Read/Write operations for blobs on Archive tier:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/pricing/details/storage/blobs/

However, it is not possible to do these kinds of operations without rehydrating the blobs to Cool/Hot tier first.
So what does that mean by this?

Answer 1

@Minh NGUYEN Firstly, apologies for the delay in responding here and any inconvenience this issue may have caused.

However, it is not possible to do these kinds of operations without rehydrating the blobs to Cool/Hot tier first? No, The Archive tier is an offline tier for storing blob data that is rarely accessed. The Archive tier offers the lowest storage costs, but higher data retrieval costs and latency compared to the online tiers (Hot and Cool). Data must remain in the Archive tier for at least 180 days or be subject to an early deletion charge. For more information about the Archive tier, see Archive access tier.

While a blob is in the Archive tier, it can't be read or modified. To read or download a blob in the Archive tier, you must first rehydrate it to an online tier, either Hot or Cool. Data in the Archive tier can take up to 15 hours to rehydrate, depending on the priority you specify for the rehydration operation. For more information about blob rehydration, see Overview of blob rehydration from the Archive tier.

Note : A blob in the Archive tier is offline — that is, it cannot be read or modified — until it is rehydrated. The rehydration process can take several hours and has associated costs. Before you move data to the Archive tier, consider whether taking blob data offline may affect your workflows.

Data must remain in the Archive tier for at least 180 days or be subject to an early deletion charge. For example, if a blob is moved to the Archive tier and then deleted or moved to the Hot tier after 45 days, you'll be charged an early deletion fee equivalent to 135 (180 minus 45) days of storing that blob in the Archive tier.

Refer to this article for detailed content on Archive Storage: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/581615/index.html

A blob cannot be read directly from the Archive tier. To read a blob in the Archive tier, a user must first change the tier to Hot or Cool. For example, to retrieve and read a single 1,000-GB archived blob that has been in the Archive tier for 90 days, the following charges would apply:

• Data retrieval (per GB) from the Archive tier: €0.0187/GB-month x 1,000 GB = €18.68
  • Rehydrate operation (SetBlobTier Archive to Hot): €4.669/10k = €0.0005
• Early deletion charge: (180 - 90 days)/30 days x €0.001/GB-month x 1,000 = €2.78
• Read blob operation from Hot = €0.0038/10k = €0.0000004
• Total = €18.675 + €0.0005 + €2.774 + €0.0000004 = €22

Please let us know if you have any further queries. I’m happy to assist you further.

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