Bulk data migration transfer cost: network, appliance, or both

Quick answer

Three paths exist for bulk data movement. Over the public internet, inbound to AWS is free but outbound is about 0.09 dollars per GB, and throughput is limited by your circuit. Over a dedicated interconnect, transfer is roughly 0.02 dollars per GB plus port fees from about 0.30 dollars per hour for 1 Gbps. A physical appliance such as an 80 TB Snowball Edge costs around 300 dollars per job plus shipping, making it roughly 0.004 dollars per GB. The deciding factor is usually time: 100 TB takes 10 days at a saturated 1 Gbps, which appliances beat outright.

Migrating bulk data is one of the few cloud cost decisions where the cheapest option and the fastest option can be the same thing, and where the obvious option, just copy it over the internet, is often neither. The choice hinges on three numbers: how many terabytes, how many days you have, and how much bandwidth you can actually sustain.

How long does a transfer take

Volume	100 Mbps	1 Gbps	10 Gbps
10 TB	9.9 days	1.0 day	2.4 hours
50 TB	49 days	4.9 days	12 hours
100 TB	99 days	9.9 days	1.0 day
500 TB	494 days	49 days	4.9 days

These figures assume 100 percent link utilization, which never happens. Real sustained throughput on a shared business circuit is commonly 50 to 70 percent of the nominal rate after protocol overhead, contention with production traffic, and TCP behavior over long paths. Plan on 1.5 times these durations unless the link is dedicated to the migration.

Path one: the public internet

Inbound transfer to every major cloud is free, so migrating data into the cloud over the internet costs nothing in cloud charges. You pay only for your own circuit and for the requests: uploading 100 TB as 5 MB parts is about 20 million PUT requests, which at 0.005 dollars per 1,000 is 100 dollars. Larger parts reduce that proportionally.

Migrating out is the expensive direction at about 0.09 dollars per GB, so 100 TB costs roughly 7,700 dollars at tiered rates. The exit waiver the major clouds introduced in 2024 removes this charge for customers leaving the platform entirely, which is worth pursuing if your migration qualifies.

Path two: a dedicated interconnect

A dedicated connection such as Direct Connect, ExpressRoute, or Cloud Interconnect gives predictable throughput and a much lower per-GB rate. AWS Direct Connect charges a port fee, roughly 0.30 dollars per hour for a 1 Gbps dedicated port and about 2.25 dollars per hour for 10 Gbps, plus data transfer out at around 0.02 dollars per GB depending on location. Inbound remains free.

For 100 TB outbound, that is about 2,000 dollars in transfer against 7,700 over the internet, plus port fees. But provisioning a dedicated port takes weeks and usually involves a colocation partner and a contract term, so it only makes sense if you also want the link for ongoing use. If you do, the ongoing savings compound, as covered in Direct Connect data transfer savings.

Path three: a physical appliance

Shipping disks is still the highest-bandwidth option available. An AWS Snowball Edge Storage Optimized device holds around 80 TB usable and costs roughly 300 dollars for a 10 day job, with additional days around 30 dollars each, plus shipping. Data transfer into AWS from the device is free. That works out to roughly 0.004 dollars per GB, which is an order of magnitude below any network path.

For 500 TB, that is about 7 devices, so around 2,100 dollars in job fees plus shipping, completed in one to two weeks of wall-clock time including transit. The same 500 TB over a saturated 1 Gbps link takes 49 days and, if outbound, costs about 36,000 dollars. Appliances also avoid consuming your production circuit for weeks, which has its own operational value.

A hybrid approach usually wins

The two paths are not exclusive, and the best plan often uses both. Ship the cold bulk, the 90 percent of the dataset that has not changed in months, on appliances. Move the hot, actively changing portion over the network in parallel, then run a final incremental sync over the network once the appliances have landed. For a 500 TB dataset where 50 TB is active, that means 6 appliances at roughly 1,800 dollars in job fees plus about 5 days of network transfer at 1 Gbps for the remainder, finishing in under two weeks instead of seven.

The hidden costs of every path

Whichever path you choose, budget for verification and for the delta. You will need to checksum the transferred data, which costs read operations on both ends. And because the source keeps changing during a long transfer, you need a final incremental sync to catch the delta, which for a 100 TB dataset changing 2 percent per week over a 4 week migration means another 8 TB to move at the end.

There is also the destination storage class question. Landing 500 TB in S3 Standard costs about 11,500 dollars per month, while landing it in Glacier Instant Retrieval costs about 2,000 dollars, and Deep Archive about 495 dollars. For archival migrations the landing tier matters more than the transfer method. Plan the destination alongside the path and price both against the resource catalog.

FAQ

How long does a large data transfer take?

At 100 percent link utilization, 100 TB takes about 99 days at 100 Mbps, 9.9 days at 1 Gbps, and 1 day at 10 Gbps. Real sustained throughput on a shared business circuit is commonly 50 to 70 percent of the nominal rate after protocol overhead and contention, so plan on roughly 1.5 times these durations unless the link is dedicated to the migration.

Is transferring data into a cloud free?

Inbound transfer is free on all major clouds, so migrating in over the internet costs nothing in cloud transfer charges. You pay only for your own circuit and for requests: uploading 100 TB as 5 MB parts is about 20 million PUT requests, costing roughly 100 dollars at 0.005 dollars per 1,000. Using larger parts reduces that proportionally.

When is a physical transfer appliance cheaper?

Almost always at high volume. An 80 TB Snowball Edge Storage Optimized job costs roughly 300 dollars for 10 days plus shipping, with free ingest, working out to about 0.004 dollars per GB. Moving 500 TB needs about 7 devices for around 2,100 dollars in job fees, against about 36,000 dollars and 49 days for the same volume outbound over a saturated 1 Gbps link.

Does a dedicated interconnect pay off for a migration?

Only if you also want the link afterwards. Direct Connect charges roughly 0.30 dollars per hour for a 1 Gbps port and about 2.25 for 10 Gbps, with outbound transfer near 0.02 dollars per GB versus 0.09 over the internet. That saves about 5,700 dollars on 100 TB outbound, but provisioning takes weeks and usually involves a colocation partner and a contract term.

What costs do people forget in a migration?

Verification, which requires checksum reads on both ends, and the delta sync. Because the source keeps changing during a long transfer, a 100 TB dataset changing 2 percent per week over a 4 week migration needs another 8 TB moved at the end. The destination storage class also matters: 500 TB in S3 Standard is about 11,500 dollars per month versus about 495 dollars in Deep Archive.

How does C3X help with migration cost?

C3X prices infrastructure from Terraform before deployment, including destination storage buckets and their storage classes, lifecycle rules, and the network resources a migration path relies on. Since the landing tier often dominates the long-run cost of a migration more than the transfer method does, having that priced before the data arrives is what prevents an expensive default.

What to do next

Plan where the data lands before you move it. C3X prices Terraform against a live resource catalog. Start with the quickstart.