• Vendor-Agnostic Engine: Whether you use Veeam, Rubrik, Cohesity, or Commvault, the physics of the cloud remain the same. This tool models the underlying storage layer, making it universally applicable to any backup solution writing to object storage.
• The “Hidden Cost” Revealer: Most TCO calculators only show you the cost to store data. We calculate the cost to leave. This tool exposes the often-overlooked Egress fees and Retrieval taxes that can wreck a DR budget.
• Real-World “Thaw” Modeling: Restoring from Archive tiers (like Glacier Deep Archive or Azure Archive) isn’t instant. We visualize the mandatory “thaw” latency (SLA wait time) separate from the actual data transfer time.
• Physics-Based Bandwidth: A 10 Gbps pipe never delivers 10 Gbps of throughput. Our “Link Efficiency” slider lets you account for real-world friction—including TCP overhead, API latency, re-transmissions, and protocol inefficiency—giving you a realistic RTO (Recovery Time Objective).

How do I use this calculator?

1. Enter Restore Size: Input the amount of data you need to recover right now. Use the post-deduplication size (the actual amount of data sitting in the cloud bucket).
2. Select Tier: Choose the cloud provider and the specific storage tier where your backup data resides.
3. Set Bandwidth: Adjust the slider to match your company’s internet or Direct Connect/ExpressRoute speed.
4. Adjust Efficiency: Use the “Link Efficiency” slider to account for overhead. (See below).

What is “Link Efficiency” and why is it set to 70%?

In networking, “theoretical throughput” (e.g., 1 Gbps) is rarely achievable in practice. We default to 70% to account for:

• Protocol Overhead: TCP/IP headers and handshakes consume bandwidth.
• API Latency: The “chattiness” of object storage protocols (GET requests) slows down the stream.
• Backup Software Overhead: The time your backup software takes to rehydrate, decrypt, and process data blocks.
• Contention: Other traffic sharing the same internet pipe.
• Pro Tip: For highly optimized links (like AWS Direct Connect with a multi-threaded restore agent), you might bump this to 80-90%. For standard internet VPNs, 60-70% is realistic.

Why is there a “Retrieval Delay”?

If you store data in “Cold” or “Archive” tiers (like AWS S3 Glacier Deep Archive or Azure Blob Archive), the cloud provider physically moves your data to offline tape or low-power disk. Before you can read a single byte, they must “thaw” or “stage” it back to a hot tier. This process takes anywhere from minutes to 12+ hours depending on the tier. This calculator adds that mandatory wait time to your total RTO.

Where does the pricing come from?

We use standard, public list prices (pay-as-you-go) for the US-East (N. Virginia) or equivalent regions for AWS, Azure, and GCP.

• Note: This calculator does not account for Enterprise Discount Programs (EDP) or reserved capacity pricing. It is intended to provide a “worst-case” conservative estimate for budgeting.

Does this include API Request costs?

No. API costs (PUT/GET/LIST requests) vary wildly depending on how your specific backup vendor writes data (e.g., block size, object size). While these costs can add up, Egress and Retrieval fees typically make up 90%+ of a restore bill. We focus on those major cost drivers to keep the tool simple and effective.

Why is the cost so high?

Cloud providers often charge little to ingress (upload) data but charge significantly to egress (download) it. This is known as “Data Transfer Out.” Additionally, Archive tiers charge a specific “Retrieval Fee” per GB to discourage using cold storage for active data. This calculator sums both to show the true financial impact of a full disaster recovery event.