Storage rental in Europe: How to Select the Right One

Data is a critical business asset. Their loss can result in the loss of reputation and the collapse of the company. Buying and maintaining your own server is beneficial only to large companies. For everyone else, the solution is to pack valuable information and put it in a safe and secure place – in a rented storage.

There are four storage options:

• File-based (physical and virtual) databases are suitable for small data volumes and low performance requirements.
• Block databases, designed for corporate databases, have separate user environments, higher performance, but small volume and high cost.
• Object (private and public) are used for storing large amounts of data, storing backups. They are the most demanded.
• DBMS (cloud) have unlimited capacity, and those located on physical media have limited capacity. They have backup functions, support multitasking, but are difficult to work with without proper skills.

Cloud or File Storage Rental: Key Selection Criteria

For companies working with large volumes of information is important:

• optimize storage;
• minimize maintenance costs;
• obtain scalability of data volume;
• have high access speed.

This makes object-based storage the best solution.

The following criteria are important for businesses interested in renting cloud storage:

• fault tolerance;
• security;
• ease of administration;
• manageability;
• speed of access to cloud data;
• cost savings.

What should be considered when you are leasing storage in European data center?

For companies operating in the EU, it is necessary to lease storage whose provider meets the requirements of the EU data privacy regulation (GDPR).

Leasing data storage in secure data centers means automatic replication on multiple independent servers in different racks, SLA guarantees on service level, protection of networks, applications and operating systems. The set of rental services offered by data centers means that the information will not be lost under any circumstances.

Rental costs are based on the size of the storage facility and the amount of outbound traffic (the larger the size, the lower the cost).

The benefits of renting cloud storage are obvious. The customer gets the full range of services for storing and downloading data, easy scaling of data volumes, and any integration with information systems, without having to invest in the IT infrastructure.

For a small company with a limited budget, organizing the IT-infrastructure in the economy mode, the lease of the file or ftp-storage becomes the solution. This allows you to reduce the cost of purchasing equipment.

• Network Attached Storage (NAS) supports RAID technology. It is used as an alternative to cloud storage for storing data and organizing convenient work in the office. You can rent and install file storage either in the office or in a data center.
• Remote file hosting is needed for business ideas involving fast file exchange, such as downloading drivers, software, storing documents and archives.