Tiered Cloud Backup to S3 Standard, Wasabi, and Glacier Deep Archive with RcloneView

November 18, 2025 · 4 min read

Senior Engineer

Keep recent restores fast and long-term retention cheap: hot in S3 Standard, warm in Wasabi/R2, and archive in Glacier Deep Archive—with RcloneView schedules and bucket lifecycle policies.

A single storage class rarely fits every file. Design a tiered pipeline: copy fresh data to S3 Standard for rapid access, mirror to a low-cost warm tier (Wasabi/R2) for geo redundancy, and push monthly snapshots to Glacier Deep Archive for compliance retention. RcloneView layers a GUI over rclone so you can schedule Syncs, verify with Compare, and keep lifecycle rules intactno shell scripts.

Relevant docs

Create Sync Jobs: https://rcloneview.com/support/howto/rcloneview-basic/create-sync-jobs
Job Scheduling & Execution (Plus): https://rcloneview.com/support/howto/rcloneview-advanced/job-scheduling-and-execution
Compare folders: https://rcloneview.com/support/howto/rcloneview-basic/compare-folder-contents
Mount as local drive: https://rcloneview.com/support/howto/rcloneview-basic/mount-cloud-storage-as-a-local-drive

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RcloneView is a cross-platform GUI for rclone. Compare folders, transfer or sync files, and automate multi-cloud workflows with a clean, visual interface.

One-click jobs: Copy · Sync · Compare
Schedulers & history for reliable automation
Works with Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, S3, WebDAV, SFTP and more

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Why tiered backup with RcloneView

Recovery speed: Recent files stay in S3 Standard for low-latency pulls.
Cost control: Warm copy in Wasabi/R2; deep archive in Glacier for cents per TB-month.
Resilience: Multi-cloud and multi-region reduce single-provider risk.
No scripting: Visual jobs, schedules, and logs instead of cron/YAML.
Proof: Compare jobs surface drift before you need to restore.

Architecture at a glance

[Primary (NAS/Drive/OneDrive)] --(Hourly Sync)--> [S3 Standard hot copy]
                                         \
                                          --(Daily Sync)--> [Wasabi/R2 warm copy]
                                          --(Monthly Copy)--> [Glacier Deep Archive]

Hot: S3 Standard (fast restore).
Warm: Wasabi or R2 (cheap + egress-friendly for restores).
Cold: Glacier Deep Archive for 90-365 day retention (use bucket lifecycle to transition objects).

Prerequisites

Three remotes configured in RcloneView (e.g., s3:hot, wasabi:warm, s3:archive).
Versioning on hot/warm buckets; lifecycle rules on the archive bucket to transition to Glacier Deep Archive.
IAM/API permissions: list/read/write + multipart; Glacier restore permissions for cold tier.

Open multiple cloud remotes in RcloneView

Step 1: Build the hot and warm Sync jobs

Create a Sync job (Primary -> S3 hot).
In Advanced Settings, set transfer counts and enable checksum comparison if both sides support hashes.
In Filtering Settings, exclude cache/temp folders.
Create a second Sync job (Primary -> Wasabi/R2 warm) with similar settings and filters.
Save both jobs in Job Manager.

Running an encrypted sync job in RcloneView

Step 2: Add the cold archive Copy job

Create a Copy job (S3 hot -> Glacier archive bucket). Use Copy, not Sync, to avoid deletions on archive.
In Advanced Settings, set transfer counts and checksum comparison as needed.
Use bucket lifecycle rules to transition objects to Glacier Deep Archive and expire old versions after compliance windows.

Step 3: Schedule everything

In the Job wizard (Step 4: Scheduling, Plus), set cadences: hourly hot, nightly warm, monthly cold.
Use Simulate to preview schedules and set retry counts in Advanced Settings.
Add a weekly Compare (hot vs warm) to catch drift early.

Configure the job scheduler in RcloneView

Step 4: Verify integrity

Run Compare between hot and warm after the first full sync.
For the archive, spot-check restores: perform a small Glacier retrieval and confirm files open correctly.
Keep a small canary file (e.g., canary.txt) in every tier and check its presence in Compare reports.

Compare shared folder and My Drive contents

Step 5: Restore playbook

Fast restores: pull from warm (Wasabi/R2) or hot (S3 Standard) depending on egress/location.
Deep restores: initiate Glacier restore for the needed prefix; then Copy back to warm/hot.
Use Mount in RcloneView for browsing before bulk copy to avoid restoring the wrong folders.

Tuning tips

Latency/egress sensitive: lower transfer counts during business hours; raise off-hours.
Glacier costs: bundle archives monthly; avoid frequent small uploads to reduce PUT and retrieval requests.
Security: pair hot/warm with Object Lock (see immutable guide) to block ransomware deletes.
Naming: prefix snapshots with date folders (e.g., archive/2025-11/) to simplify lifecycle and restores.

Troubleshooting checklist

Restore delays: Glacier retrieval can take hours—plan RPO/RTO accordingly.
AccessDenied on archive: ensure the IAM role allows glacier:InitiateJob/restore for the bucket.
Drift found: rerun hot/warm Sync; if archive missing objects, re-Copy the delta from hot.
Costs spiking: enable lifecycle expiration after retention; cap concurrency during peak egress windows.

Tier once, schedule always, and keep both costs and RPO under control with RcloneView.