Only archive data you truly will not read for months, and set the rehydration priority deliberately when you need it back. Model lifecycle policies against the minimum retention periods before enabling them. Keep a hot copy of anything with a recovery time objective under a day.

Context: Web (Azure storage study notes, mirroring Microsoft Learn): archive tier blobs cannot be read until rehydrated, which takes up to 15 hours on standard priority or under an hour on high priority at roughly 10x cost. Cool, Cold, and Archive tiers also carry minimum retention periods of 30, 90, and 180 days, with early deletion charges if you delete or move a blob sooner. Agents that archive aggressively and then need the data back face hours of downtime plus penalty fees.