When it comes to Amazon Web Services (AWS), S3 is one of the most popular services. This is because S3 provides a secure and scalable storage solution for businesses of all sizes. In order to ensure that your S3 buckets are sized correctly, you need to understand how to calculate their size. In this blog post, we will discuss three methods for getting the size of an S3 bucket in AWS. Let’s get started!
Table of Contents
What is an S3 bucket in AWS?
An Amazon S3 bucket is a public cloud storage resource available in Amazon Web Services (AWS) Simple Storage Service (S3), an object storage offering. Amazon S3 buckets, which are similar to file folders, store objects that consist of data and its descriptive metadata.
S3 Bucket allows users to store their data in the form of objects in a scalable manner. Each object in the bucket contains the data, a key (which is a unique identifier assigned to an object), and metadata. The data can be anything from text files, photos, and videos to any sort of content.
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Get S3 bucket size in AWS with AWS console
The first method for getting the size of an S3 bucket is to use the AWS Management Console. To do this, simply login to your AWS account and navigate to the S3 service page. On this page, you will see a list of all of your S3 buckets.
- Open the AWS S3 console and click on your bucket
- Click on the Metrics Tab
- In the Bucket Metrics section, the Total bucket size graph shows the total size of the objects in the bucket
Get S3 bucket size in AWS with AWS CLI
The second method for getting the size of an S3 bucket is to use the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI). To do this, you will need to first install the AWS CLI on your computer. Once you have done this, you can run the following AWS CLI command to get the size of an S3 bucket:
aws s3 ls s3://your_bucket_name --recursive --human-readable --summarize
Let’s break down the command:
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aws s3 ls: This is the base command that lists all of the S3 buckets in your AWS account, or the contents of a specified bucket.
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s3://your_bucket_name: This part specifies the bucket that you want to interact with.
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–recursive: This is an optional flag that tells the command to list objects in the bucket and in all of its subdirectories. Without this flag, the command would only list objects in the top-level directory of the bucket.
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–human-readable: This is another optional flag that changes the way the command outputs data sizes. Without this flag, the command outputs data sizes in bytes. With this flag, the command outputs data sizes in a more human-readable format (like KB, MB, GB, etc.).
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–summarize: This is yet another optional flag that adds a summary at the end of the command’s output. The summary includes the total number of objects in the bucket, the total size of all objects in the bucket, and the total size of all objects in each storage class.
The command’s output shows:
- the date the objects were created
- their individual file sizes
- their path
- the total number of objects in the s3 bucket
- the total size of the objects in the bucket
Get S3 bucket size in AWS with AWS S3 Storage lens
The third and final method for getting the size of an S3 bucket is to use the AWS S3 Storage lens. Navigate to the S3 console and click on the View Storage Lens dashboard button.
It provides us with free of charge metrics, including:
- number of buckets
- total objects in your account / specific bucket
- total storage in your account / specific bucket
- average number of objects
- many others
The metrics get collected daily and are retained for a period of 14 days.
What is the maximum file size that can be stored in an S3 bucket?
The maximum file size that can be stored in an S3 bucket is five terabytes.
How long are files stored in an S3 bucket?
Files are stored in an S3 bucket indefinitely unless they are manually deleted.
What is the minimum file size that can be stored in an S3 bucket?
There is no minimum file size for files stored in an S3 bucket.
What are some best practices for using S3 buckets in AWS?
Some best practices for using S3 buckets in AWS include:
- Use server-side encryption to protect your data
- Use access control lists or bucket policies to restrict access to your data
- Configure lifecycle management rules to automatically delete old or unused data
- Regularly back up your data to avoid data loss
We hope that this blog post has been helpful in showing you how to get the size of an S3 bucket in AWS. As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to us on our support forums. Thank you for reading!