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• S3 is an object store, not a file system. You will need to make sure that the tools you use to accomplish backup/archive are S3-savvy. Since S3 is not a file system, some features you might expect are missing or can be costly to replicate.
• S3 storage can be very cheap indeed, but you need to be careful that the tools you are using don't end up costing you a lot for S3 API operations used for checking object hashes and collecting other metadata from objects.
  • E.g., it costs money just to get the MD5 hash or creation date for an S3 object. It's not much money, but it can add up when dealing with hundreds of thousands or millions of objects.
• Remember AWS S3 isn't the only cloud storage available. Azure, Google, and Wasabi are other options.

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Framing Your Use Case

Here are some questions that may be valuable to answer when thinking about backup and archiving:

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