Orphaned Object Parts

When copying or moving data into object storage, files are often separated into parts before upload to improve performance. If all of the file parts needed to form the original object are not uploaded, then the parts will be orphaned.

Orphaned object parts take up space and the owner of the bucket containing these parts is charged for that consumed space. Storage vendors recommend different management strategies to handle orphaned object parts, as explained below.

Azure

Any object blocks (parts) that are uploaded but not committed remain in Azure Storage for a period of seven days. After the seven-day period ends, Azure garbage-collects the orphaned blocks.

AWS

AWS leaves orphaned object parts in S3 storage indefinitely. Therefore, it is critical to create a lifecycle policy to remove object parts after a specified number of days. Amazon recommends a scheduling a seven-day lifecycle policy. For details on creating and tuning an S3 lifecycle policy, see Discovering and Deleting Incomplete Multipart Uploads to Lower Amazon S3 Costs.