## Object Storage Object storage platforms allow for storing entire files rather than individual file system blocks. Generally these follow an S3 compatible API but it could be made even broader to include other interfaces. Object storage could be used for backups, data lakes, or applications that want piecemeal consumption of files. ### S3 Amazon first released Simple Storage Service in March of 2006. It had a REST interface for getting and manipulating buckets and objects within buckets. It's since been adopted by other storage providers, making consumers a little bit more portable. > S3 is a popular approach to cloud storage. It saves information as objects and organizes them using identifying keys or metadata—as well as larger buckets—to create a flat hierarchical structure. This makes it easy to to find and retrieve information. #### Pricing When considering S3 pricing, there are three things to consider: storage fees, API call fees, and egress fees. [^seagates3]: https://www.seagate.com/blog/what-is-s3-api/