Data Storage Management Strategies for Lower Cloud Costs

Whether you’re a streaming service managing thousands of hours of video content, a fintech company tracking real-time market data, or a healthcare startup storing patient records, businesses increasingly rely on data storage infrastructure to securely house, organize, and access their critical information assets. With all this data, companies need to find a way to manage and scale their storage needs without letting costs spiral out of control.

Companies must weigh the tradeoff between investing in fast storage that delivers instant data access during busy periods against the lower costs of standard solutions that may slow down when it matters most. Beyond performance concerns, decision-makers struggle with implementing backup systems that can quickly restore operations after outages without wasting resources protecting data that rarely needs recovery. In this article, we explore data storage management strategies and ways to ensure that your data is easily accessible, secure, and optimized for cost savings.

What is data storage management?

Data storage management is the process of managing digital data throughout its lifecycle, ensuring that it is stored, organized, and maintained in a way that optimizes performance, security, and cost-effectiveness.

Data storage management involves creating clear policies about what files to keep, where to store them, and how long to retain them—whether that’s customer records needed for seven years or transaction logs required for just 30 days. The right toolkit includes specialized software like storage resource management applications that monitor capacity trends, performance analytics that identify bottlenecks, and automated tiering systems that shuffle data between fast SSD arrays and slower archival platforms. With these tools and strategies, companies can handle information growth without constantly buying new hardware or watching their systems crawl when databases expand beyond planned capacity.

How data storage management works

Data storage management involves several steps to efficiently store, access, and maintain data while minimizing costs and ensuring reliability. The process varies depending on the storage solution used (cloud data, on-premises, or hybrid) but generally follows a structured sequence of tasks to optimize resource allocation, performance, and security.

This image provides a simplified representation of data storage management workflow for general understanding. The specific configurations and data flow may vary based on the cloud service provider and the particular use case.

• Data classification: Data is categorized based on its frequency of access and business importance, such as hot, warm, or cold data.

• Hot data: Frequently accessed data can be stored on high-performance storage

• Warm data: Data that is accessed occasionally but not as frequently as hot data. It can be stored on medium-performance storage systems that balance cost and speed, like standard cloud storage or traditional hard drives (HDDs).

• Cold data: Infrequently used (cold) data can be moved to lower-tier storage solutions or archival storage, such as cloud cold storage or physical tape drives.

• Storage selection: Different storage solutions are chosen based on the data classification, with high-performance storage used for frequently accessed data and lower-tier storage for less frequently accessed data.

• Backup implementation: Critical data is backed up on a scheduled basis to ensure it can be recovered in case of loss or system failure.

• Tracking: Storage usage, performance, and costs are monitored continuously to identify trends and potential inefficiencies.

• Data tiering: Data is automatically moved between storage tiers based on predefined rules, ensuring that less important data is kept in cost-effective storage while important data remains easily accessible. Infrequently accessed data is moved to archival storage, freeing up space in high-performance storage systems.

• Scaling: As data grows, additional storage resources are added or reconfigured to meet the increasing demands without sacrificing performance.

• Regular assessment: Storage strategies are periodically reviewed and adjusted to align with changing business needs and optimize cost and efficiency.

Types of data storage management

When selecting the right type of data storage management, consider factors like performance, cost, scalability, security, and the frequency of data access. The right choice will depend on the data’s criticality, access patterns, and long-term retention needs.

Strategies for data storage management

Implementing effective data storage management practices helps reduce cloud costs and increase cloud ROI while maintaining optimal performance, security, and availability. Here are a few strategies to get started:

1. Choose the right cloud provider

Select a cloud provider that aligns with your storage needs and offers cost-effective pricing models. Many providers offer long-term storage commitments or pay-as-you-go options. Evaluate your usage patterns and select the most cost-efficient model (e.g., reserved instances or spot instances). Regularly review your cloud provider’s storage solutions and pricing to avoid bill shock and to ensure you’re using the most cost-efficient plan based on your organization’s needs and consumption patterns. Use cloud cost calculators to compare providers and select the best plan for your current and future storage needs.

2. Automate data transitions

Use lifecycle policies to automatically transition data to lower-cost storage tiers based on predefined criteria. For example, data that has not been accessed in 30 days can automatically be moved from hot storage to cold or archive storage. Set up automated rules using your cloud provider’s tools or APIs to shift data across tiers, ensuring efficiency and reducing manual workload.

3. Maximize storage efficiency

Deploy data compression and deduplication techniques to reduce storage consumption. Compression minimizes the file size, and deduplication eliminates duplicate copies of the same data, further reducing storage space and associated costs. Integrate cloud-native tools for automatic data compression and deduplication to improve storage efficiency for archival and backup data.

4. Use multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud strategies

Instead of relying solely on one cloud provider, consider using a multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud strategy. This allows you to make use of the best pricing, service offerings, and performance characteristics from multiple cloud providers. By distributing workloads and data, you can reduce the overall cost of cloud storage and avoid vendor lock-in.

6. Implement granular access controls

Ensure that only authorized users and applications have access to your data by implementing granular access controls. Use role-based access controls (RBAC) to enforce secure data access policies to manage permissions at a granular level. This minimizes the risk of data breaches and misuse while reducing unnecessary access to costly storage resources.

7. Optimize for data backup and disaster recovery

Backup and disaster recovery data require substantial storage but can be optimized to reduce costs. Store backups in lower-cost storage tiers and implement retention policies to keep backups only as long as necessary. Implement automatic incremental backups to reduce storage needs and configure versioning for backups to ensure the most recent data is retained without consuming excessive space.

8. Consolidate storage resources

Storage consolidation combines multiple storage systems or devices into a single, unified platform. For example, you can merge fragmented storage systems like network-attached storage (NAS) or direct-attached storage (DAS) into a single, centralized repository. The goal is to eliminate redundancy and reduce the need to manage separate storage solutions. Use storage virtualization tools to create a unified, centralized storage pool and manage it more efficiently.

Explore DigitalOcean storage solutions

DigitalOcean provides two storage solutions: DigitalOcean Spaces for scalable object storage and DigitalOcean Volumes for high-performance block storage.

DigitalOcean Spaces: Scalable Object Storage for Unstructured Data

DigitalOcean Spaces is an S3-compatible object storage solution designed to simplify the management and delivery of unstructured data. With Spaces, businesses that need to store large volumes of static data such as images, videos, and backups can easily scale their storage as data grows while benefiting from reliable performance and predictable pricing.

Key features

• Scalable and affordable: Start with 250 GiB of storage and scale as needed, paying only for what you use. Outbound bandwidth costs are also predictable.

• Bucket Keys: Improve security and reduce costs by applying the principle of least privilege for access control and lowering the frequency of KMS requests. This ensures that users and applications access only the data they need. Bucket Keys lower the frequency of key management system (KMS) requests, which can reduce encryption-related API costs. This is valuable for businesses that handle sensitive data and require frequent encryption.

For example, a fintech company handling sensitive financial transactions, such as processing credit card payments, managing investment portfolios, or transferring funds, can benefit from Bucket Keys to efficiently encrypt customer data while minimizing costs associated with frequent KMS requests.

• Per-bucket bandwidth billing: One of the challenges with cloud storage is unpredictable bandwidth costs when dealing with large volumes of data transfer. You can gain better control over egress costs by paying based on actual bucket usage. This feature makes it easier for businesses to optimize costs by tracking and managing bandwidth at the bucket level rather than facing hidden fees due to fluctuating transfer volumes.

For example, a media platform serving high-resolution images and videos benefits from per-bucket bandwidth billing by controlling the cost of outbound data transfer, with predictable expenses as their content is delivered to users globally.

• S3-compatible: Integrates with existing S3 tools, utilities, and libraries for simplified storage management.

• Built-in content delivery network (CDN): Reduce webpage load times and improve performance by caching assets across 200+ geographically distributed servers.

• Performance: Designed for high read and write operations, with up to 1500 requests per second per client IP address.

• Global availability: Store and deliver data from locations across the globe with affordable pricing and fast access.

• Easy migration: Migrate data from other cloud providers to DigitalOcean Spaces with no downtime using tools like Flexify.IO.

Pricing information

DigitalOcean Spaces starts at $5 per month, providing 250 GiB of storage and 1 TiB of outbound transfer. Additional storage is priced at $0.02 per GiB per month, while additional outbound transfer is charged at $0.01 per GiB. You can scale your storage by adding up to 100 buckets, with the flexibility to add or remove them as needed.

DigitalOcean Volumes: High-Performance Block Storage

DigitalOcean Volumes provide scalable block storage for persistent data and for applications that require high throughput, low latency, and reliability. Volumes are NVMe-based, offering faster performance than traditional SSDs and HDDs.

Key features

• Scalable and high-performance: NVMe-based block storage for business-critical applications requiring fast data access and low-latency operations.

• Reliable and secure: Data is encrypted at rest and transmitted over isolated networks, ensuring high durability and availability.

• Flexible use cases: Perfect for augmenting Droplet storage, hosting databases, machine learning, web applications, and backup solutions.

• 99.99% uptime SLA: Offers high availability with a reliable uptime guarantee, ensuring consistent performance.

• Integration with Kubernetes: Easily add Volumes to Kubernetes clusters to store persistent data with minimal setup.

• Snapshots for backups: Create on-demand disk backups of your Volumes to protect data and quickly replicate storage for redundancy.

• Predictable pricing: Transparent, flat-rate pricing that allows businesses to scale storage up or down without surprises.

• API and programmatic control: Manage and automate Volumes storage via APIs, making it easy to integrate with other services or workflows.

Pricing information

DigitalOcean Volumes pricing is based on provisioned capacity. For 100 GiB of storage, the cost is $0.0149 per hour or $10 per month. For 500 GiB, it is $0.0744 per hour or $50 per month, and for 1,000 GiB, it is $0.1488 per hour or $100 per month. Volumes Snapshots are available at $0.06 per GB per month, which allows businesses to easily take on-demand backups of their volumes.

Scalable Storage for Managed Databases

DigitalOcean’s Scalable Storage offers flexible and cost-effective solutions to meet the growing storage demands of your Managed Databases for MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB. With scalable storage, businesses can scale their database storage capacity without needing to add compute or memory resources.

Key features

• Flexible scaling: Add storage in 10 GB increments without the need to scale compute or memory resources. Increase disk storage via the cloud console or API, which provides a simple and intuitive way to adjust storage to meet business needs.

• Greater disk storage capacity: Managed Databases now offer up to 15 TB (MySQL and PostgreSQL) and 16 TB of storage (MongoDB), which allows businesses to scale to handle large production workloads.

• Monitoring: Monitor compute, memory, and disk utilization to set alerts and scale resources when necessary, optimizing both performance and costs.

• Configuration options: Choose from multiple shared and dedicated compute configurations, including Basic CPU plans, Premium configurations, and Storage Optimized plans.

Sign up with DigitalOcean’s storage solutions today and take control of your cloud costs!

Data storage management strategies FAQ

What are the security risks associated with cloud data storage?

Data Loss: While cloud providers generally have strong backup mechanisms, there is always the risk of data loss due to software bugs, human error, or provider outages. Ensuring robust backup strategies is critical.

Shared infrastructure risks: Cloud providers use shared infrastructure to serve multiple customers, which can lead to potential vulnerabilities. A compromise in one customer’s data could potentially affect others using the same resources.

What are the most cost-effective cloud storage solutions?

The most cost-effective cloud storage solutions depend on your data access needs. For infrequently accessed data, cold storage options like DigitalOcean Spaces are more affordable. For archival storage, DigitalOcean Block Storage can be used in conjunction with Volumes for archiving purposes, offering low-cost, scalable storage for rarely accessed data.

How does data tiering reduce cloud storage costs?

Data tiering moves data between storage tiers based on its frequency of access, which ensures that expensive, high-performance storage is only used for frequently accessed data. This reduces overall storage costs by placing less critical data on lower-cost storage options.

How can automation help lower cloud storage expenses?

Automation helps reduce cloud storage expenses by simplifying tasks like data transitions between storage tiers, backup management, and data archiving. This reduces manual intervention, minimizes errors, and ensures data is always stored at the most cost-effective tier.

How do major cloud providers differ in storage pricing?

Cloud providers vary in pricing based on storage type (e.g., object storage, block storage), data transfer rates, and geographic location. For example, AWS S3 offers pricing based on usage patterns, while DigitalOcean Spaces provides more predictable, straightforward pricing with lower entry costs.

Resources

• Direct-attached storage (DAS)

• Flexify.IO

• Key Management System