What will happen when API call to get a object from S3 which is in S3 infrequent storage or in Glacier ?

Question

We have setup the data life cycle configurations to archive the objects from s3 to Glacier. 
We have service which will fetch the data from S3 and return the object in the response. 
After a year some objects would be archived to infrequent storage and then to Glacier. 
What will happen when API get a request for the object which is present in the Glacier ?

Will it throw error ? or will S3 API try to fetch the data but it will take longer to return ?

Michael_L · Answer

Hi there,

The behavior will depend on the storage class that you are using. S3 Standard-Infrequent Access and S3 One Zone-Infrequent Access are both storage classes that are intended for data that does not need to be accessed frequently, but must be retrieved quickly when requested. With these storage classes, a GetObject request will succeed without any issues.

S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval is a new storage class that is designed for long-lived data that's rarely acessed, but requires quick retrieval when needed. A GetObject request to an object using this storage class will also succeed without any issues.

If you are using Glacier Flexible Retrieval or Glacier Deep Archive, you will first need to initiate a restore request before you can download data from this storage class. If you attempt a GetObject request without restoring the object, S3 will return an InvalidObjectState error. For more information on S3's storage classes, please see https://aws.amazon.com/s3/storage-classes/

What will happen when API call to get a object from S3 which is in S3 infrequent storage or in Glacier ?

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