Why premium storage isn’t always premium value
MAR. 17, 2025
2 Min Read
Premium storage doesn't always equal premium value: why most organizations overpay for data they rarely use.
It’s a refrain executives have heard time and again: “Data is one of your most important assets, and you should treat it as such.”
So, naturally, many default to premium storage for everything—critical production data, untouched archives, and redundant backups alike. It feels like the safest choice. But it’s not the smartest.
The reality is that not all data needs premium storage. But without a clear strategy to differentiate high-impact assets from low-priority ones, organizations overspend on storage while underutilizing its potential.
A well-planned data-tiering strategy is a smarter approach, reducing costs while maintaining performance.
Your most expensive storage often holds your least valuable data
The logic behind defaulting to premium storage is understandable. No one wants to be responsible for critical data going missing or an outage that leads to financial and/or reputational damage. In many cases, premium storage acts as an insurance policy—one that leadership is willing to pay for without much scrutiny.
But this “better safe than sorry” approach comes at a steep price. Premium storage costs continue to climb, and as data volumes explode, so do the expenses tied to keeping everything in high-performance tiers.
Plus, much of what organizations pay to store isn’t actually all that valuable. A decade-old compliance report or an inactive customer database doesn’t need the same level of performance as a real-time transactional system.
Understanding your data tells you where money is being wasted
Before you can optimize your data storage, you need a clear picture of how it’s actually being used. Many assume they have a handle on this already, but often, their assumptions are outdated. Data that was once mission-critical can become low-priority over time, yet it lingers in premium storage simply because no one takes the time to reclassify it.
“It’s common for organizations to conduct a data audit and realize their most expensive storage is holding data they rarely access,” notes Lumenalta’s Deny Watanabe. Inactive customer records and old project files continue to sit in high-performance storage long after their relevance has faded. Meanwhile, high-value workloads may not get the performance they need because resources are tied up elsewhere.
This kind of misalignment drives up costs and slows down operations. Compliance records, for example, may need to be retained, but that doesn’t mean they belong in the same high-performance infrastructure as live transactional databases.
Smart storage tiers begin with smart business decisions
Many IT leaders believe data storage is all about capacity. That’s important, but it’s equally vital to ensure that data is stored in the right place based on how it’s actually used.
Storage tiers should be designed around business priorities, not just technical specifications. A financial services firm handling real-time trading data has vastly different needs than a media company managing decades of archived video. Applying the same storage approach to both ignores the reality that different types of data have different levels of business impact.
Every organization’s data landscape is unique, which means storage tiers should be, too. The key to preventing storage sprawl is categorizing data based on how it’s actually used.
Start by defining categories like:
- Mission-critical: Data requiring sub-millisecond access (e.g., transactional databases)
- Operational: Frequently accessed but non-urgent data (e.g., weekly sales reports)
- Archival: Rarely accessed but retained for compliance (e.g., tax records)
This framework prevents sprawl by design. As Watanabe explains, “When teams know why data is stored, they make intentional choices instead of defaulting to old habits.”
Successful storage transitions need more than technical plans
A well-designed storage strategy is a good start, but the real challenge is making the change stick. Nothing derails long-term storage optimization faster than resistance to change—engineers may balk at migrating “safe” data to lower tiers, while executives might fear performance trade-offs.
The reality is that, with the right execution, neither of those things happen. But shifting that mindset takes more than explanations—it takes proof.
The easiest way to build trust? Start small with a few high-impact pilots. Migrate a single department’s archival data first. Measure performance pre- and post-migration to demonstrate no loss in accessibility. When teams see firsthand that nothing breaks, performance remains steady, and costs drop, the transition feels less like a gamble and more like an obvious next step.
Managing cultural shifts is just as important as technical ones. A well-executed transition should reduce costs while keeping disruption to a minimum.
Storage optimization is an ongoing investment
Once your storage is optimized, you have to work to keep it that way. Left unchecked, inefficiencies creep back in, and before long, storage sprawl returns. It takes some work, but organizations that treat optimization as a continuous process enjoy compounding value over time.
Data environments are ever-changing. New workloads come online, old files lose relevance… if no one’s paying attention, premium storage quietly fills up with data that no longer belongs there.
To prevent this, make tiering part of your data hygiene routine. Checking what’s being stored, where it’s being stored, and whether it still makes sense will prevent unnecessary costs from piling up again.
That being said, policies and audits can only take you so far. For storage efficiency to stick for good, it needs to be part of the company mindset. Clearly communicating why certain data belongs in a lower-cost tier, why not everything needs premium storage, and why intentional data management matters will make smart storage decisions second nature.
The payoff of smart data storage goes far beyond short-term savings. Organizations that keep at it gain a system that scales with the business, keeping costs in check while ensuring critical data remains accessible.
