Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect ExpertDesign data storage solutionsEasy
A global enterprise needs to store petabytes of historical sales data for long-term retention and occasional auditing. This data is rarely accessed (perhaps once a quarter), but when it is, retrieval time can be up to a few hours. The primary concern is minimizing storage costs. Which Azure Blob Storage tier is the most cost-effective for this scenario?
- APremium
- BCool
- CHot
- DArchive
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: D. Archive
The Archive tier is designed for rarely accessed data with flexible latency requirements (up to several hours) and offers the lowest storage costs among all Azure Blob Storage tiers. This makes it ideal for long-term retention and occasional auditing where retrieval time is not critical.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Premium tier is for high-performance block blobs and is not a cost-effective choice for rarely accessed historical data.
- B. The Cool tier is for infrequently accessed data with lower storage costs than Hot but higher than Archive, and faster retrieval than Archive.
- C. The Hot tier is optimized for frequently accessed data and has the highest storage costs.
Azure Blob Storage Archive Tier
The lowest-cost storage tier for Azure Blob Storage, optimized for rarely accessed data with flexible latency requirements (hours).
- Lowest storage cost, highest access cost.
- Retrieval can take several hours (rehydration).
- Ideal for long-term backups, archival, and compliance data.
Memory trick: Archive is cheapest for old data's sleep.