Storage Classes and Costs
A cloud bucket's storage price is only part of the cost of using it through Files.com. People browsing folders, an application collecting deliveries, and a Sync comparing a large tree can produce very different bills for the same stored data. The storage class, request count, and transfer path determine the workload's cost.
Agree which cloud account pays for requests, retrieval, and transfer under the Remote Server ownership model. The storage owner's requirements for how the connection uses it also affect the design. Files.com separately measures its own storage and transfer usage. A transfer that avoids Files.com's network can still incur provider charges.
Storage Classes and Access Tiers
A storage class or access tier changes the price and access characteristics of stored objects. Classes designed for frequent use generally charge more for storage and less for access. Infrequent-access classes can lower the storage rate while charging more for requests or retrieved bytes and imposing a minimum billable storage duration. Availability and redundancy can differ as well, so price alone is not the whole choice.
When you control the storage choice, we recommend evaluating lower-cost classes at your primary cloud provider before switching providers for price alone. We often see customers consider Wasabi or Backblaze B2 without first comparing the savings available from a different class at their existing provider. For a suitable workload, a lower-cost S3 class can deliver comparable storage savings while keeping the data with AWS.
Our preference is to retain an established primary provider such as AWS, whose reputation, support, and operating practices are part of the value of the service. An appropriate class can reduce costs while preserving the account controls and integrations your team already uses. Compare full workload costs, including request, retrieval, transfer, and minimum-duration charges, and confirm that the class meets the workflow's read requirements.
Archive storage has provider-specific meaning. Some archive tiers require a restore before contents can be downloaded; others remain immediately readable at a higher retrieval price. A file can therefore appear in a listing while its contents are unavailable to a scheduled job.
Files.com cannot restore files from offline archive tiers. Someone with the required provider access must perform the restore or rehydration directly through the storage provider and wait for completion before Files.com can download the contents. For storage supplied by a customer or vendor, that party may need to arrange the restoration.
| Provider | Immediately Readable Storage | Restore and Billing Considerations |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon S3 | Files.com supports Standard, Standard-IA, One Zone-IA, Intelligent-Tiering's online tiers, and Glacier Instant Retrieval. | Glacier Flexible Retrieval, Glacier Deep Archive, and Intelligent-Tiering's optional Archive Access and Deep Archive Access tiers require an AWS restore before a Mount or Sync can read their contents. |
| Azure Blob Storage | Hot, Cool, and Cold are online tiers. Lower storage prices come with higher access costs; minimum-duration charges depend on the tier and account type. | Archive is offline. A blob must be rehydrated to an online tier in Azure before a Mount or Sync can read it. Rehydration can take hours. |
| Google Cloud Storage | Standard, Nearline, Coldline, and Archive remain online. Nearline, Coldline, and Archive trade lower storage rates for retrieval charges and minimum durations. | These GCS classes do not require an archive restore. GCS Archive has a 365-day minimum billable storage duration, even though its contents remain immediately accessible. |
Use the provider's S3 class comparison, Azure tier guidance, or GCS class comparison for the full tradeoffs and supported configurations. The provider's complete class catalog is broader than a particular Files.com connector's supported storage choices.
A working folder or unattended delivery needs readable contents at the time the workflow accesses them. An administrator selecting its storage class can keep active files in an online tier. When another party controls the class, agree with that operator whether the files remain online or who will restore them before the required read time. The same restoration responsibility matters for recovery of long-term records. A lifecycle policy can change a file's tier after upload, so a file readable on upload can be offline when tomorrow's job needs it.
Charges Beyond Stored Bytes
Estimate the workflow with the cloud account owner using the provider's rates for the selected location, class, and account agreement.
| Charge | Work That Can Produce It |
|---|---|
| Requests | Listing pages, reading properties, uploads, copies, downloads, and lifecycle transitions. Different operations can have different rates. |
| Retrieval | Reading contents from an infrequent-access class, including reads needed for processing or some copies. Offline archive restoration can add its own charges. |
| Data transfer out, often called egress | Sending contents from the provider to another network, cloud, or user. Free allowances and exceptions depend on the provider and route. |
| Cross-region transfer or replication | Moving data between locations, or maintaining configured copies across regions. Remaining within one cloud provider does not make every route free. |
| Minimum storage duration and early deletion | Deleting, replacing, or changing an object's class before its minimum billable period ends can leave charges for the remaining period. This is a billing rule, separate from a retention lock that prevents deletion. |
| Additional retained data | Previous versions, soft-deleted objects, and incomplete multipart parts can remain billable after they disappear from the working folder or a transfer fails. Some classes also have minimum billable object sizes. |
Rates and charging rules belong to the provider: see Amazon S3 pricing, Azure Blob pricing, and Google Cloud Storage pricing. Include key-management and optional storage features where your configuration uses them.
For example, a daily report replaced under the same name can repeatedly incur write requests, preserve earlier versions, and end a previous object's billable lifetime before its minimum duration. A lower per-gigabyte storage price can cost more for that workload than a class intended for active files.
Requests and Repeated Scans
Listing retrieves names and metadata without reading every file's contents, but each page is a provider request. In S3, a listing returns at most 1,000 entries per request. A flat prefix containing one million objects therefore requires at least 1,000 listing requests for one complete pass. Scanning it hourly requires at least 24,000 listing requests per day, even if no files change. Walking subfolders or inspecting individual files can add requests.
A Sync can spend substantial time comparing its source and destination before transferring new contents. The Remote Metadata Index scans the whole configured mount at each indexing interval. For many small files or frequent scans, request charges can exceed the charge for the stored bytes.
On the Files.com side, scope Mounts and Syncs to the required data and choose scan intervals that meet the delivery requirement. The remote folder layout can limit that scope; reorganizing a feed requires agreement with its operator and the applications that use it. More frequent discovery has a cost even when a job reports no transfers. The cloud account owner can compare provider request counts and costs with your Files.com run results, including when your connection uses their bucket.
Transfer Paths and Files.com Usage
Direct Routing sends eligible client transfers directly between the client and cloud storage. Those contents avoid Files.com Transfer Usage, while the provider's request, retrieval, and outbound-transfer rules still apply. A direct cloud download is not automatically free egress.
For relayed transfers, account for the provider-to-Files.com and Files.com-to-destination portions of the route. Files.com Transfer Usage follows the contents transferred through Files.com's network. Buffering and file processing can add temporary Files.com storage and onward delivery.
A provider-side copy within one mount has different costs from a Sync between locations or a streamed copy. A large folder move can require many copies and deletions even when the contents stay with the provider. Estimate the actual operations and route with the cloud account owner, then compare a representative run with the usage records available to each team.