Amazon Launches Glacier Cloud Storage Service

Amazon Web Services this week launched a low-cost storage service that is optimized for data archiving and backup.

Amazon Glacier provides customers with data storage beginning at $0.01 per gigabyte per month, and charges for only the space that is used.

The online retailer boasts that its service differs from most cloud storage – users pay nothing upfront and can scale usage up or down as needed, according to AWS. Service highlights include low cost, secure transfers, and archive durability.

The new service archives customers' data, which is personally organized into vaults, then controlled through Amazon's Identity and Access Management service.

"Amazon Glacier removes the need for complex and time-consuming capacity planning, ongoing negotiations with multiple hardware and software vendors, specialized training, and maintenance of offsite facilities or transportation of storage media to third party offsite locations," Amazon said on its site.

In other words: Glacier is simple. The user-friendly service safely stores data for as long as it is needed, with no additional effort from customers.

The new service will soon allow use in conjunction with other Amazon Web Services, including Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), which will offers users the ability to seamlessly move data between S3 and Glacier.

Prices for data transfer vary depending on region and size, beginning at the advertised $0.01. Comparably, S3 storage runs from $0.125 to $0.055 per GB for standard storage.

While S3 is a good option for someone looking to frequently access their stored data, Glacier is a better pick for those who do not need to access the data very frequently.

Glacier supports various uses, including the archiving of offsite enterprise information, media assets, and research and scientific data, as well as digital preservation, and magnetic tape replacement, according to the AWS site.

Amazon's Glacier is currently available in regions of the U.S. (Northern Virginia, Northern California, Oregon), as well as Ireland and Japan.

For more from Stephanie, follow her on Twitter @smlotPCMag.