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Storage Tiering

Backup data is stored in Azure Blob Storage using three tiers — hot, cool, and archive — with automatic transition based on backup age. Tiering reduces storage cost for long-term retention while keeping recent backups fast to restore.

Storage Tiers Overview​

TierAccess LatencyMonthly Storage CostUse Case
HotMillisecondsHigherLast 30 days — fast restore
CoolSeconds~50% cheaper than hot31 days to 12 months
Archive1–15 hours (rehydration)~90% cheaper than hot12 months+ long-term retention

Restore speed varies significantly by tier. Plan for archive tier rehydration time when testing DR runbooks that involve data older than 12 months.

How Tiering Works​

New backup objects are written to hot storage. The tiering system automatically transitions objects based on age:

AgeTransition
0–30 daysHot storage
31–365 daysCool storage (auto-transition on day 31)
365+ daysArchive storage (auto-transition on day 366)

Transition is handled by Azure Blob lifecycle management rules configured at the storage account level. No configuration is required in the Backups console — it happens automatically.

Hot Tier: Fast Restore (Last 30 Days)​

The hot tier keeps your most recent backups immediately accessible:

  • Restore time: Near-instant for file-level restores; full image restores are limited by network speed
  • Typical use: Day-to-day restores, recent accidental deletions, same-day ransomware recovery
  • Cost: Slightly higher storage cost, no data retrieval fee

For most real-world restore scenarios (user deleted a file, ransomware hit yesterday), hot tier data is sufficient.

Cool Tier: Mid-Term Storage (31 Days to 12 Months)​

Cool tier stores backups that are less likely to be needed but should be accessible within minutes:

  • Restore time: Seconds to minutes for individual files; full image restores require staging
  • Typical use: Month-old versions, weekly/monthly retention snapshots, investigation of older incidents
  • Cost: Lower storage cost; small data retrieval fee applies
ℹ️Cool tier data is accessible without a rehydration step, but the first byte latency is higher than hot. For most file-level restores, the difference is not noticeable. For full image restores from cool tier, expect the first few minutes of transfer to be slower as the data is staged.

Archive Tier: Long-Term Retention (12+ Months)​

Archive tier stores compliance backups and annual retention snapshots:

  • Restore time: 1–15 hours rehydration before data is accessible
  • Rehydration priority: Standard (up to 15 hours) or High (under 1 hour, premium fee)
  • Typical use: Annual compliance snapshots, regulatory retention requirements, insurance policy evidence
  • Cost: Lowest storage cost; rehydration fee applies when restoring

Initiating an Archive Restore​

  1. Go to Catalog → select the device
  2. Navigate to the file or snapshot
  3. If the data is in archive tier, a banner shows: "This data requires rehydration before restore (estimated: N hours)"
  4. Click Restore → Request Rehydration
  5. Choose rehydration priority:
    • Standard — Free; up to 15 hours
    • High Priority — Premium fee; under 1 hour
  6. You receive a notification when rehydration is complete and the restore is ready

Plan archive tier restores in advance. Do not rely on archive tier data for same-day recovery.

Storage Cost Estimates​

Approximate per-endpoint monthly storage cost at default retention settings (7-day daily, 4-week weekly, 12-month monthly):

WorkloadDaily ChangeEst. StorageEst. Monthly Cost
Light office (documents only)50 MB8 GB~$0.16
Standard office (documents + email)200 MB25 GB~$0.50
Active developer1 GB80 GB~$1.60
File server5 GB300 GB~$6.00

Costs are estimates based on Azure Blob pricing in East US 2 with hot/cool/archive blending. Actual costs vary based on data compressibility, change rate, and tier distribution.

Bring-Your-Own-Storage​

Connect your own Azure storage account to use your negotiated pricing, specific geographic region, or compliance-required data residency:

  1. Go to Settings → Storage → Bring Your Own Storage
  2. Enter your Azure storage account name and connection string
  3. The platform validates access and creates the required containers
  4. New backups write to your storage account; existing backups remain in the platform storage until retention expires

Bring-your-own-storage also enables:

  • Immutable blob storage for ransomware-proof retention (see Retention Schedules)
  • Customer-managed encryption keys for BYOK compliance requirements
  • Specific Azure regions to meet data residency requirements
ℹ️Bring-your-own-storage requires the storage account to be in Azure Blob. Other storage providers (AWS S3, Google Cloud Storage) are not supported at this time.

Monitoring Storage Usage​

Go to Devices → select a device → Storage tab to see:

  • Total storage used
  • Breakdown by tier (hot / cool / archive)
  • Storage trend over the past 90 days
  • Projected storage in 30/60/90 days based on current change rate

The tenant-level Storage dashboard aggregates usage across all devices and SaaS connections with a cost estimate for the current billing period.