Introducing the Short-Term Archive: A Smarter Way to Store Your Data

Kevin Thomas
3 days ago
4 min read

Updated: 2 hours ago

Data is being created faster than ever — and businesses are being forced to rethink how they store it. Traditionally, organizations have had two choices: keep their data in expensive hot storage for instant access or move it to long-term cold archives meant for data that might never be touched again.

But what about all the data that sits somewhere in between?

Logs, event files, customer interactions, AI training data, and Slack conversations don't need to live on expensive SSDs or HDDs forever, but they can't be buried in deep archive systems. Companies often need this "middle ground" data available for 30, 60, or 90 days for backup, compliance, auditing, or operational support. After that, it can safely be retired.

Until now, businesses have had to overpay for hot storage or take risks with inaccessible cold storage. It's time for a better option.

Welcome to the concept of the Short-Term Archive.

What Is Short-Term Archive?

Short-Term Archive is a new way of thinking about your data lifecycle. It's designed for data that needs to be kept accessible — but not at hot storage prices — and only for a limited time window.

Unlike long-term cold archive systems, which are built for data that might be stored untouched for decades, short-term archive solutions focus on flexibility and cost control. The goal is simple: keep recent but infrequently accessed data safe, online, and ready if needed without burning through your IT budget.

It's the perfect solution for companies generating massive volumes of high-transaction, operational, or compliance data that must be retained temporarily — but without traditional cloud long-term costs and complexities.

Why Geyser Data Makes Short-Term Archive Work

We've built our Cold Data Cloud Service at Geyser Data to solve this growing pain point. We believe businesses shouldn't have to choose between keeping valuable data online and staying financially sustainable.

Our platform delivers the proven durability of enterprise-grade tape storage in a modern, cloud-connected model, giving you all the benefits of secure, scalable archiving without the overhead of managing hardware.

However, the real advantage is in the economics: our short-term archive service can cut your storage costs by 85% or more compared to Amazon Glacier. That’s because Glacier Flex enforces a 90-day minimum retention, plus charges egress and API fees that add up fast. If you're only looking to store data for 30 days, you're paying for three times what you use. For example, in a high-volume environment that creates two petabytes a day, the API costs alone can exceed Geyser’s entire storage bill.

Geyser Data's short-term archive solution offers online access without the painful retrieval delays often associated with deep cold storage. Even better, we eliminate hidden fees that cloud providers love to sneak in. There are no minimum retention times, no egress charges, or surprise API retrieval costs — just simple, affordable storage for the data you need to keep temporarily accessible.

Geyser Data can sustain ingestion of multiple PBs per day and keep for only few weeks, without the API fees, nor minimum retention fees. Geyser Data also allows for easy copying of some of this data back to the hot tier in the cloud.

This new model also supports sustainability goals. Tape storage consumes significantly less energy than spinning disk or flash storage, offering a greener, smarter way to manage large volumes of transient data.

Where Short-Term Archive Fits in Real Businesses

Not all data needs to live forever—but it still needs a smart, affordable place to live for now. Whether you're training AI models, running simulations, or capturing logs at scale, short-term data storage is a growing challenge across industries. Here are five real-world scenarios where paying for long-term cloud storage just doesn’t add up.

Autonomous Vehicles & Robotics From Waymo to Boston Dynamics, these companies generate petabytes of sensor and video data daily. They need a place to park that data while retraining machine learning models—then purge or archive it smartly. Paying top-tier cloud rates for short-term storage? That’s a non-starter.
Telcos & ISPs Telecom giants capture mountains of NetFlow, DNS, and packet data—vital for regulatory compliance and security analytics. But storing 90 days of this firehose on expensive Tier-1 cloud platforms? That’s a quick way to blow your budget.
Oil & Gas Exploration Seismic data pours in during exploration bursts, often in the petabyte range. It’s essential for processing and analysis in the moment—but after a few weeks or months, the raw data loses its shine and becomes expensive dead weight.
AI Model Training & Simulation Building the next big AI model? Training pipelines often pull together huge synthetic and real-world datasets—valuable today, disposable tomorrow. You need storage that keeps pace with your iteration cycle, not your cloud bill.
Media, VFX & Post-Production Studios crank out massive intermediate files during rendering—hundreds of TBs to multiple PBs. These assets are essential for 30–60 days… and then? They vanish or get selectively archived. Paying long-term storage rates for short-term creative cycles doesn’t make sense.

In all of these scenarios, traditional hot storage is simply too expensive—and permanent archiving doesn’t match the business need. That’s where short-term archives shine. They bridge the gap, giving you fast, affordable access for 30 to 90 days without locking you into long-term storage costs. And if you decide the data needs to stick around longer? No problem. With Geyser, you don’t have to move anything—just keep it right where it is and continue the service. No penalties, no pressure, and no need to check out early.

Stop Choosing Between Hot and Cold. Choose Smart.

Your data storage strategy shouldn't be forced into an "all or nothing" decision. Not everything needs to be instantly hot — and not everything needs to be frozen for eternity.

Short-Term Archive offers a smarter middle ground: online, affordable, accessible storage for data that matters now but not forever. It's the flexible solution modern businesses need to control costs without compromising data availability.

At Geyser Data, we're helping companies rethink storage — not as a binary choice but as a lifecycle strategy that adapts to real business needs.

If you're ready to stop burning your budget on the wrong storage tier, it's time to explore how a short-term archive with Geyser Data can work for you.