A hospital must keep imaging backups for seven years for compliance. The copies are read only during rare audits, and a retrieval delay of several hours is acceptable. Which Cloud Storage class minimizes the storage cost for this data?
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A
Archive storage has the lowest at-rest price of the Cloud Storage classes, with a 365-day minimum storage duration and retrieval fees. It suits data accessed less than once a year, such as long-term compliance copies. Coldline targets data read roughly once a quarter, Nearline once a month, and Standard holds frequently accessed data. Choosing a colder class for frequent reads would raise costs.
Why the other options are wrong
- B. Standard suits frequently accessed data and carries the highest storage price of these classes, so it is the wrong choice for rarely read backups.
- C. Nearline is intended for data accessed about once a month. It costs more to keep than Archive for data that is almost never read.
- D. Coldline fits data read about once per quarter. For yearly audit access, Archive stores the same data more cheaply.