Choose a cloud storage provider by matching it to your research workflow, institutional and funder requirements, security needs, access pattern, preservation plan, and full lifecycle cost—not by comparing storage prices alone. First determine whether your data must go to a designated or discipline-specific repository; cloud object storage is not automatically a sharing or long-term preservation destination. There is no universally best or cheapest provider without a defined workload and current, comparable quotes.
Start with the research and its obligations
Before comparing vendors, describe how the data will be created, processed, shared, retained, and retrieved. The answers determine which services and storage tiers are viable, and whether cloud storage is appropriate at all. NIH’s cloud guidance recommends considering factors such as collaboration, cloud-ready tools, variable demand, funding stipulations, and who is accountable for information-security controls.
- Data profile: Estimate current volume and growth, file or object sizes and counts, and how data will be ingested.
- Compute and access: Identify where analysis will run, who needs access, expected retrieval frequency, latency and throughput requirements, and whether collaborators need to share data.
- Governance: Check sensitivity, data-location rules, retention obligations, funder requirements, and institutional policies with your data steward, IT team, and security or privacy staff.
- Operations: Identify who will manage accounts, permissions, billing, security controls, and support—and what happens when that person, project, or grant ends.
- Cloud readiness: Confirm that your tools and workflows can use the proposed cloud environment and that the team has the skills and time to operate it.
NIH frames the strategic question directly: “Is the cloud a part of your long-term data management strategy?” Its guidance also asks, “How is your data managed and structured?” and “What are your research requirements related to processing, sharing, analyzing, and storing data?” Use those questions to set requirements before soliciting prices. Read NIH’s cloud-suitability guidance.
Check whether you need a repository, not just storage
Cloud object storage is infrastructure for storing and accessing files or objects. A data repository is a service intended to support discovery, access, sharing, and stewardship. They solve related but different problems: a cloud bucket does not by itself provide curation, a persistent identifier, useful metadata, or a durable public record of research data.
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Check your funder’s and institution’s requirements first. NIH advises using a repository mandated by policy or award terms where applicable and gives priority to discipline- or data-type-specific repositories when appropriate. When evaluating a repository, assess its persistent identifiers, sustainable stewardship, metadata and curation, access controls, privacy safeguards, breach plans, and download controls. NIH cautions that cloud resources are not guaranteed indefinitely and should not replace appropriate repositories or archives. See NIH’s repository-selection guidance and NIH’s cloud guidance.
Plan FAIRness, privacy, and security
Uploading data does not make them FAIR—findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. NIH STRIDES states: “Data uploaded into the cloud are not automatically FAIR.” Prepare metadata, decide who may access the data, and document reuse conditions as part of the workflow rather than assuming a storage service will do it for you.
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For sensitive data, compare documented privacy and access safeguards against institutional requirements. Establish controls for identity and permissions, auditability, key management, retention, and incident response, and assign an accountable owner. For protected health information in a STRIDES workload, the NIH STRIDES FAQ says a business associate agreement is required. Confirm the arrangement and your institution’s review before placing that data in a service. Check the STRIDES FAQ.
Compare the whole lifecycle cost
A low storage rate can be outweighed by the cost of writing, reading, restoring, transferring, managing, and eventually moving data. NIH specifically warns that egress can become expensive for large volumes. AWS’s S3 pricing categories illustrate the kinds of charges to check: storage, requests, retrieval, data transfer, and additional features. Depending on the class, minimum billable object sizes, minimum storage durations, and restore charges can also affect the bill. These are AWS-specific terms, not a universal description of every provider. Review AWS S3 pricing.
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For each shortlisted provider, request a current quote for the same workload and region. Include the following rather than comparing a headline per-unit storage rate:
- Storage volume by tier, including expected growth and retention duration.
- Ingest and retrieval request counts, plus any retrieval or restore charges.
- Outbound transfer and egress to users, collaborators, or other compute environments.
- Management features, support, and any minimum object-size or minimum-duration rules.
- Replication, backup, recovery, and migration costs, including the practical cost of leaving the service.
- Staff time and operational ownership over the full project or retention period.
Pricing, regions, and service terms change. A useful estimate therefore needs your data profile, retrieval pattern, transfer forecast, and target region; without those inputs, a universal provider price comparison would be misleading.
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Choose a storage tier for the access pattern
Data analyzed frequently and data retained for years but rarely accessed have different latency and retrieval needs. Hot, infrequent-access, and archival tiers can trade immediate access for lower storage charges or different retrieval costs and delays. Map the expected access cadence of each dataset to a tier, and check the provider’s specific terms for the region you plan to use.
AWS documents multiple S3 storage classes, including hot, infrequent-access, and archival options; some have retrieval fees or restore delays. AWS also gives a designed durability figure of 99.999999999% for Amazon S3 Standard. That figure is a design target for that named class, not a cross-provider benchmark or a substitute for an independent backup and recovery plan. Review AWS storage-class documentation.
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Compare providers against the same workload
Build a shortlist only after setting the workload, region, and requirements. Compare providers on identical assumptions so that differences in estimates reflect actual service terms rather than different input data.
| Decision area | What to verify |
|---|---|
| Scientific workflow | Ingest method and speed; data size and growth; file or object counts; compute location; collaboration and sharing needs; retrieval cadence. |
| Lifecycle cost | Storage tier, requests, retrieval and restore, outbound transfer, management features, minimum billable object size and retention period, support, and migration out. |
| Performance and resilience | Required latency and throughput; geographic and zone placement; availability design; restore times; replication and recovery model. Do not treat a vendor durability design target as a complete backup or preservation plan. |
| Governance | Required repository, data location or residency, privacy and access controls, audit trail, key management, breach response, retention, and documented compliance needs. |
| Interoperability and exit | Compatibility with institutional tools and environment, data formats, APIs, transfer routes, and practical egress or migration cost. |
| Operations and continuity | Staff skills and time, account and billing ownership, support, funding duration, and the plan when a grant or project ends. |
Microsoft’s service-family mapping places Amazon S3 alongside Azure Blob for object storage and also describes colder or archive patterns, hybrid file options, and bulk-transfer appliances. It is a terminology aid, not an independent benchmark or proof that capabilities, performance, or costs are identical. See Microsoft’s AWS-to-Azure storage mapping.
Check research-specific programs and continuity
For eligible NIH-supported research, STRIDES is a program intended to reduce economic and process barriers to cloud use. The NIH STRIDES page lists Google Cloud (July 2018), AWS (September 2018), and Microsoft Azure (July 2021) as partners. The STRIDES FAQ currently identifies negotiated pricing agreements with AWS and Google Cloud while listing contact channels for all three providers. Program arrangements and terms may change, so check current eligibility and details with NIH and the providers rather than assuming every partner has the same pricing arrangement. Review NIH STRIDES and its FAQ.
Also make the end-of-funding plan explicit. The STRIDES FAQ says storage after an active NIH award ends must have another funding source or be moved unless another arrangement is made. Include that transition in the budget and operational plan; do not assume that project storage remains funded indefinitely.
Make the selection in a defensible order
- Confirm obligations: Ask the funder, institution, data steward, and security or privacy staff about required repositories, data location, access, retention, and sensitive-data controls.
- Document the workload: Estimate data volume and growth, object sizes and counts, ingest, compute location, collaborators, retrieval cadence, and retention period.
- Set service requirements: Define acceptable latency, throughput, recovery and restore times, access controls, interoperability, and who will operate the account.
- Shortlist eligible options: Include institutional services and, where relevant, research-specific arrangements such as NIH STRIDES. Verify current terms and eligibility directly.
- Model comparable costs: Use the same region, workload, access pattern, and retention assumptions for each provider; include request, restore, transfer, support, management, and exit costs.
- Write the continuity plan: State how data will be backed up and recovered, preserved or deposited in a repository, funded after the grant, and moved if the service no longer fits.
Choose the option that meets the research and governance requirements with a workable lifecycle cost and an accountable operating plan. If no option meets those conditions, revisit the workflow or use an institutional or repository service rather than selecting a provider on storage price alone.
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