Tip of the Week: 4 Steps to Determine Your Needed Data Storage

In order for your business to effectively use its technology, you need to consider your data storage capabilities. You need to make sure that you’re in the Goldilocks zone (not too much, not too little, just right) in terms of your storage space in order to avoid issues. For this week’s tip, we’ll review some of the things you need to ask in order to optimize your business’ data storage.

Regardless of the industry you are in, your business’ storage situation needs to be taken into account. You wouldn’t want unsightly cleaning supplies out in the open because you lacked the space to keep them, would you? Or, consider the inventory that you might need to store. Either having too little or too much space will have some impact on your business’ finances, and it won’t be good. The same can be said of your business’ data, and how you store it.

How to Manage Your Business’ Data

Data plays a key role in every aspect of your business, which means that a lot of it will need to be stored - and more so than that, it needs to be stored in a purposeful way that will ultimately benefit your organization. As technology has advanced, so have data storage solutions… a trend which shows no sign of stopping.

Traditionally, there has been a three-tiered model for data storage. There are the storage facilities themselves, the servers that enable users to leverage these facilities, and the networking that allows access to the stored data. In order to leverage these solutions, a business would need to have a precise understanding of what their data storage needs would be for up to the next five years. Of course, with business moving as quickly as it does today, it can be hard to predict the next five hours, let alone five years.

This is a large part of why businesses are shifting to better, more modern alternatives. The hyperconverged IT framework was designed to simplify data centers and make the physical hardware businesses rely on more scalable, and cloud computing provides businesses with access to their needed resources for what can be a very reasonable, budgetable monthly payment.

In short, today’s businesses have options, but it is also crucial that these options are weighed properly. Make sure you take the following four considerations into account:

1. What is my needed capacity? - While today’s solutions are far more easy to scale to a business’ needs than in the past, it will help to have some idea of how much storage you anticipate to be necessary. Having too little or far more than you need are both situations you will want to avoid.
2. Where does my IT currently stand? - As you plan for your business’ future, it will be helpful to fully appreciate where you are starting from. Analyzing your current infrastructure and determining what needs to be improved will help you to gain this invaluable perspective.
3. Which configuration will best meet my performance requirements? - Between speeds and storage capacities, the solutions available to you can vary wildly. Keeping your intended use of these solutions in mind will help you to select your best option.
4. What about my backups? - Any business that depends on data (which means any business) should have some kind of backup plan to protect this data and, by extension, the business itself. Your data backup strategy will have considerable influence on the storage solution you select.

Any solution you adopt in your business, data storage or otherwise, should be selected with care and consideration. After all, you need these solutions to work for you, not against you. The professionals at Walsh IT Group have plenty of experience in dealing with the solutions that will work best for you, including your data storage options. Give us a call at (832) 295-1445 today to identify the data storage and other solutions that best fit your needs.