Data volumes are exploding, and your storage bills are following suit. As your organization collects more information, traditional storage approaches become financial nightmares.
Smart data management will help you reduce data storage costs and also maintain performance while meeting complex regulatory requirements.
Here are practical strategies to address increasing storage expenses across your systems, including Salesforce. These approaches help you reduce data storage costs while preserving essential data.
1. Implement Continuous Data Classification and Lifecycle Management
Data classification is the foundation of controlling and reducing data storage costs. By categorizing information based on usage patterns, regulatory requirements, and business value, you can implement storage policies that cut expenses.
Continuous classification sorts data into distinct categories with varying storage requirements. Your critical data may require high-performance storage with frequent backups. Operational data can reside on standard systems with regular archiving. Rarely accessed archival data belongs on inexpensive, high-capacity solutions.
Automated lifecycle management extends this approach as data moves or gets removed based on predefined rules. As it ages or changes in importance, it automatically shifts to less expensive storage or gets deleted when no longer needed.
For Salesforce users, particularly in regulated industries requiring strict standards such as SOX compliance, Flosum's backup solution supports intelligent data management through detailed classification of your Salesforce data. You can apply specific data retention policies, access controls, and storage tiers based on data sensitivity.
2. Eliminate Redundant and Abandoned Data
Duplicate records, outdated files, and forgotten projects silently consume valuable storage space and inflate storage costs.
Address this by using automated tools to detect duplicates and outdated data through analysis of file metadata, content, and access patterns. After identification, apply a structured removal process:
- Identify redundant or potentially obsolete data.
- Notify relevant stakeholders.
- Set a review period.
- Obtain explicit approval for deletion.
- Archive data (if required) using data archiving strategies before permanent removal.
Implement data cleanup as a recurring practice with quarterly or semi-annual reviews where teams evaluate their data and justify retention. This proactive approach maintains lean, cost-effective storage and preserves valuable information.
3. Optimize Storage Tiering Strategies to Reduce Data Storage Costs
Multi-tiered storage reduces costs by matching data value with storage performance and price. It categorizes your data into different tiers based on access frequency and importance:
- Hot storage: For frequently accessed, critical data.
- Warm storage: For less frequently accessed data requiring relatively quick retrieval.
- Cold storage: For rarely accessed data that can wait longer for retrieval.
Automated policies can move data between tiers based on access patterns, keeping your most valuable and frequently used information on high-performance storage while less critical data uses cheaper options.
For example, Flosum's flexible deployment options allow you to store data in our cloud, your preferred cloud provider, or on-premises infrastructure, balancing performance needs with budget constraints.
The savings can be substantial when comparing approximate costs.
Hot storage typically runs $0.10-$0.20 per GB monthly, while warm storage costs about half that at $0.05-$0.10 per GB per month. The real savings kick in with cold storage, which drops to just $0.01-$0.05 per GB monthly. When you're dealing with terabytes of data, these differences add up fast.
Implementing data archiving solutions can also help in moving data to these lower-cost storage options.
To maximize cost savings, prioritize storing only data that delivers clear business value on high-performance tiers, while moving less critical or infrequently accessed information to lower-cost storage. Routinely assess your tiering strategy to make sure resources aren’t wasted on data that no longer justifies premium placement.
4. Use Data Compression and Deduplication Techniques
Data compression and deduplication can reduce your storage requirements and costs. Compression encodes information using fewer bits, while deduplication eliminates redundant data by storing unique instances only.
Choose compression algorithms based on your data type.
For text and documents, lossless options such as DEFLATE or LZMA preserve every detail and ensure data integrity. For images and multimedia, lossy compression reduces file size while maintaining acceptable quality for most business needs.
Deduplication operates at file or block levels. File-level approaches identify and eliminate duplicate files, while block-level methods work on smaller data chunks for more precise optimization. These methods are particularly useful for backups where small changes in large files are common.
Flosum's Composite Backup technology provides secure data backups for Salesforce environments by capturing only new, changed, or deleted data, dramatically reducing backup storage requirements.
Depending on data types and patterns, companies typically see storage reductions using these techniques. Text-heavy databases might see reductions at the higher end, while already compressed media files show less dramatic savings.
Keep in mind that heavy compression and deduplication can impact application performance, since accessing compressed data uses more processing power.
To maintain speed, apply the most aggressive compression to data that isn’t accessed frequently, and use tiered strategies to balance storage savings with system responsiveness.
5. Adopt Incremental and Differential Backup Approaches
Your backup approach directly affects storage costs.
For example, full backups capture your entire dataset but require significant space and time. Incremental backups store only changes since the last backup, saving storage but requiring more recovery steps. Differential backups record all changes since the last full backup, balancing storage use.
To optimize your approach:
- Start with a full backup as your baseline.
- Follow with regular incremental or differential backups.
- Periodically create new full backups to consolidate changes.
Following best practices such as the 3-2-1 backup rule can further improve your backup strategy.
Choose the right mix based on how often your data changes, your recovery time objectives, and your system capacity.
6. Monitor and Manage Shadow Data
Shadow data is information stored outside the oversight of your IT department, such as spreadsheets, personal databases, or unauthorized cloud applications. While often intended to speed up business processes, this unmanaged data can create serious risks and unexpected expenses.
Start addressing shadow data with thorough discovery:
- Network scans to identify unauthorized repositories.
- Surveys and interviews with department leaders.
- Analysis of cloud service usage across the organization.
When bringing shadow data into formal processes, balance control with innovation. Start by offering a judgment-free amnesty period so teams can safely disclose any shadow systems.
Then, streamline the approval process for new tools and provide accessible training on good data management habits. This way, you maintain oversight without stifling the creativity that often drives these unofficial solutions in the first place.
You can prevent future shadow data growth with clear governance policies, streamlined request processes for new tools, regular audits, and a culture of data responsibility through education.
7. Implement Hybrid Cloud Storage Solutions to Reduce Costs
Hybrid cloud storage means using both your own servers and cloud storage together, so you can put each type of data where it makes the most sense and costs less.
This way, you get the control of keeping some data on-site and the flexibility to easily add more space in the cloud.
When setting up hybrid cloud storage:
- Classify data based on sensitivity and access patterns to determine the optimal location.
- Evaluate performance requirements and latency needs for different workloads.
- Ensure alignment with regulatory requirements and security policies.
- Plan for efficient data transfer between environments, considering bandwidth and egress fees.
Flosum provides exceptional deployment flexibility for Salesforce environments, including compatibility with Salesforce Hyperforce. It allows you to host backups in its cloud, attach your own storage from major providers like AWS or Azure, or run fully on-premises.
When evaluating storage options, look beyond base storage fees to consider:
- Management overhead in time and resources.
- Compliance costs for meeting regulatory standards.
- Access pattern impacts on performance and transfer costs.
8. Regularly Audit and Optimize Storage Usage
Storage optimization requires ongoing attention.
A storage audit uncovers unused allocations, outdated or redundant data, and inefficient storage configurations. It also pinpoints data access patterns that reveal opportunities for optimization.
By systematically reviewing these areas, you can quickly identify ways to reduce unnecessary costs.
Automated reporting and monitoring tools streamline this process. For Salesforce environments, Flosum offers visibility into data usage patterns and storage consumption, helping teams quickly spot optimization opportunities.
Implement a quarterly review process using this checklist:
- Review storage allocation versus actual usage.
- Analyze data growth trends.
- Identify top storage consumers.
- Evaluate data retention policies.
- Check for orphaned or unused data.
- Assess compression and deduplication effectiveness.
Set clear KPIs to measure improvements as you optimize storage. Track metrics such as percentage reduction in storage costs, improved data retrieval times, and decreased duplicate data percentage. Also, monitor your storage utilization rate to ensure you're making the most of your available resources.
Start Reducing Data Storage Costs Today
Cutting data storage costs requires a multi-layered approach. By implementing these eight strategies, from ongoing data classification to routine storage audits, you’ll slash expenses and also support better data management.
Remember, storage cost optimization isn’t a one-time fix. As your data grows and changes, revisit these tactics to keep getting the best value from your storage investments.
If you’re using Salesforce, Flosum can help you implement these strategies, combining intelligent backups, flexible deployment options, and advanced data management in one platform.
Start with a detailed storage audit to spot your biggest savings. Apply these strategies step by step, and you’ll streamline your entire data management process while keeping costs in check.
