Cloud Storage and On-Site Storage - A Closer Look

Cloud Storage and On-Site Storage - A Closer Look

With data use on the rise, more and more businesses are turning to public cloud service providers to meet their data access and storage needs. But while cloud storage offers many advantages, it should not be viewed as a catch-all data storage solution. Cloud storage, like any storage solution, has its benefits and drawbacks, and when considering cloud storage for your business, you should weigh the pros and cons very carefully before making a decision.

Pro: Cost to Scale

Cloud storage allows many enterprises to enjoy large storage capacities that are priced to scale. You can simply adjust your data storage costs based on what you need, and utilize the various pricing structures offered by cloud providers to get the best value for your money. If you need to expand, you can increase storage without having to plan for subsequent costs such as physical space, hardware maintenance, and additional IT staff.

Pro: Hassle-Free Deployment

Many enterprises quickly leap to public cloud because they allow them to deploy data infrastructure very quickly. Putting your data on the cloud saves you the effort of evaluating, purchasing, and maintaining hardware, and you can rapidly grant your employees access to essential software and services by adjusting the number of software licenses to purchase.

Pro: Offsite Management

By storing data in a remote location, you can potentially streamline your business operations by providing flexible work arrangements. As long as they have the proper credentials to access business data, employees can accomplish tasks from anywhere. And in the case a disaster strikes your office, having your data accessible offsite allows your employees to carry on with operations remotely, potentially avoiding significant downtimes.

Con: Hidden Costs

Although cloud storage can often offer lower upfront costs, lifetime and hidden costs are another matter. Many SMB enterprises struggle with complex storage tiers and pricing schemes that muddle up the budget, and factors such as additional bandwidth costs will add up over time. This is especially relevant as bandwidth costs can be hard to plan for: if you exceed the bandwidth allowance due to unforeseen circumstances, charges can be very costly. In fact, SMB enterprises often cite these costs as the primary barrier to entry for cloud storage as they lack the resources to overcome economy of scale and bandwidth restrictions.

Con: Data Security

Security is a major concern for many enterprises. When it comes down to it, using a public cloud service to store your business data will always invite data security and privacy concerns as the data is exposed to higher rates of external hacks and cyberattacks. Recent studies also show that in general, cloud storage providers have a harder time tracking unauthorized access and providing audit trails. Make sure that you are aware of the security risks before putting your data on the cloud.

Con: Compliance

Depending on your industry, it may not be possible to adopt public cloud for data storage. Due to security concerns, many new regulations have come out to address user data storage, such as how user data is stored on the cloud. This is especially relevant for industries such as healthcare and financial services, with strict guidelines and security protocols you – and your cloud provider – must meet.

Only you can determine whether moving your data to the cloud is best for your enterprise. Because of the benefits and drawbacks of cloud storage, Buffalo actually considers a hybrid cloud – a platform that uses a mix of third party public cloud storage and onsite private cloud storage – to be the "best of both worlds" approach. Hybrid cloud allows you to prioritize what data stays on your on-premise storage, giving you secure access to sensitive data while lowering storage costs on non-essential data.

Our different TeraStation solutions are ideally positioned to take advantage of cloud storage savings while offering robust data protection and flexible backup options to help you craft your perfect data storage solution.