How to Drastically Reduce Storage Costs?

Storage costs are basically the sum of all money one spends on the data that is stored within the company. Many IT departments and IT experts focus on cost of the drives and the RAID controller, and include running costs for maintenance, support and especially power costs for the drives and the cooling of the air. A much more realistic picture is drawn when taking a look at the total cost of stored data (Total Cost of Ownership Data Stored): direct and indirect costs for stored data, such as storage, data transfer, backup and security costs. Eventually, this total cost is closely related to total data volume, meaning the total size of all stored data.