What is the most cost-effective way to store video files for SQS-based processing?

A company is creating a new application that gives users the ability to upload and share short video files. The average size of the video files is 10 MB. After a user uploads a file, a message needs to be placed into an Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) queue so the file can be processed. The files need to be accessible for processing within 5 minutes. Which solution will meet these requirements MOST cost-effectively?

  1. Write the files to Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive. Add the S3 location of the files to the SQS queue.
  2. Write the files to Amazon S3 Standard. Add the S3 location of the files to the SQS queue. Source Reference Answer
  3. Write the files to an Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) General Purpose SSD volume. Add the EBS location of the files to the SQS queue.
  4. Write messages that contain the contents of the uploaded files to the SQS queue.

Community Votes

B
100%

100% of anonymous learners picked answer B. Votes are pick records left by other test-takers — they are not the verified answer.

Community Insight

The question tests whether candidates understand that SQS has a 256 KB message size limit and should be used to pass references to objects stored in S3, rather than storing large binary files directly in the queue.

This question tests the optimal integration between Amazon S3 and Amazon SQS for processing uploaded video files. The community overwhelmingly agrees that storing files in S3 Standard and passing only the object reference via SQS is the most cost-effective and performant approach.

Some candidates choose Option D, attempting to store file contents directly in SQS, forgetting that SQS messages are limited to 256 KB and cannot accommodate 10 MB video files. Others mistakenly choose S3 Glacier Deep Archive, not realizing its retrieval latency exceeds the 5-minute requirement.

Community Discussion (4 comments)

e886835 👍 2 Selected: B
Amazon S3 Standard is the most appropriate storage class for frequently accessed data, such as video files that need to be processed quickly (within 5 minutes).
ShakthiGCP 👍 2 Selected: B
s3 is cost effective compared to EBS
ShakthiGCP 👍 1 Selected: C
Ans: C ,. s3 is cost effective compared to EBS
Dahlia9524 👍 3 Selected: B
S3 so it still can be accessed.

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Expert Analysis

Understanding the Architecture Requirements

This question presents a common real-world pattern: decoupling file upload from processing using a message queue. The key requirements are:

1. File size: Average 10 MB video files 2. Processing latency: Files must be accessible within 5 minutes 3. Cost-effectiveness: The solution must minimize costs

Why Option B is Correct

Amazon S3 Standard is the ideal storage class for this scenario because:

  • It provides immediate access to objects (milliseconds latency), easily meeting the 5-minute requirement
  • It is highly cost-effective for frequently accessed data compared to EBS
  • It integrates seamlessly with SQS by passing object references (S3 URIs) in queue messages
  • It automatically scales to handle any volume of uploads
The pattern of "store large data in S3, pass reference in SQS" is a fundamental AWS best practice that decouples storage from messaging.

Why Other Options Fail

Option A (S3 Glacier Deep Archive): While extremely cheap, Glacier Deep Archive has retrieval times of 12+ hours for standard retrieval. Even expedited retrieval takes 1-5 minutes and costs significantly more. This violates the 5-minute processing requirement.

Option C (Amazon EBS): EBS volumes are block storage designed to be attached to EC2 instances, not for storing files accessed by distributed processing systems. EBS is:

  • More expensive than S3 for object storage
  • Limited to a single EC2 instance (unless using multi-attach with restrictions)
  • Not designed for the "upload once, process anywhere" pattern
  • Requires managing volumes, snapshots, and capacity planning
Option D (Store files in SQS): This is technically impossible because SQS has a maximum message size of 256 KB. A 10 MB video file exceeds this limit by 40x. Even if you used Amazon SQS Extended Client Library (which stores large payloads in S3 anyway), you'd be adding unnecessary complexity.

Community Consensus

The community strongly agrees with Option B (88% of votes). As one commenter noted: "S3 is cost effective compared to EBS" and "S3 Standard is the most appropriate storage class for frequently accessed data." The consensus reflects solid understanding of the S3-SQS integration pattern.

Official Reference

Exam Strategy

When you see questions combining SQS with large data files, immediately check if any option tries to store the data directly in SQS - this is always wrong due to the 256 KB limit. The correct pattern is always to store data in S3 and pass the reference through SQS.

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