Since the inception of computers, enterprises had been using hard disks for data storage and transfer purpose. Most popular option is ‘portable hard disk’ being cost effective, easy to use and ability to carry anywhere features. Because of success of portable hard disks enterprises got attracted to it and started leveraging them for business data storage, backup and archival purposes, which is not the purpose these disks are meant for. Portable hard disks were developed for storage of temporary data and primarily for portability purpose.
Companies need to look at more reliable storage solution considering below mentioned criteria’s, because data not available on time or loss of data is as bad as data was never available!
Below is the comparison summary between ‘portable hard disk’ and ‘Windows Azure Storage services’ storage options against different criteria’s.
|
Sr. No |
Criteria | Portable Hard Disk | Cloud(Windows Azure) |
Winner |
|
1 |
Data Security | Low – Easily accessible | High- Always Secure Access | Azure Storage |
|
2 |
Ease of data Access | Data Access is easy as one has to just plug the HDD in USB | Internet based data access | HDD |
|
3 |
Portability | High | Low – but data is available around the world via Internet |
HDD |
| 4 | Reach | Low – Need to physically carry everywhere | High – Data accessible globally |
Azure Storage |
|
5 |
Disaster Recovery | Low – Very less chances of data recovery | High – Inbuilt disaster recovery. Data gets copied at 3 places and will be automatically made available in disaster recovery scenarios |
Azure Storage |
|
6 |
Data redundancy | Low – Need to implement explicitly which costs your more | High – Inbuilt data redundancy. Data gets copied at 3 places |
Azure Storage |
| 7 | Availability | Low- Vulnerable to numerous environmental conditions | High – 99.9% promised availability with world class data centers support |
Azure Storage |
|
8 |
Performance | High – Local access | Low- Internet based access | HDD |
| 9 | Maintenance | Need more care in periodic verifying of device | No maintenance needed |
Azure Storage |
|
10 |
Vulnerable to physical damage, heat, dust, wear and tear | Yes- highly vulnerable | No |
Azure Storage |
|
11 |
Life of storage device | 2-3 years max | Virtually unlimited | Azure Storage |
| 12 | Risk of device theft | High | Low |
Azure Storage |
|
13 |
Data access concurrency | Cannot be accessed concurrently for more than few users | Can be accessed by large users concurrently |
Azure Storage |
|
14 |
Governed SLAs | No | YES – by Microsoft | Azure Storage |
| 15 | Device Driver needs | YES | NO |
Azure Storage |
|
16 |
Data Access time | Less because of local data transfer | More because of internet based data transfer | HDD |
| 17 | Price | 1 TB for Approx. $100 | $0.07 per GB per month |
HDD |
|
18 |
Storage Capacity | Fixed – need to decide at the time of buying | Virtually unlimited | Azure Storage |
| 19 | Storage flexibility | If data size increases, Data storage cannot grow by itself | Cloud storage supports scalability out of the box with ability to storage unlimited data. Flexibility in terms of Pay as you go model |
Azure Storage |
|
20 |
Pricing Model | Capex – Capital investment is needed. | Opex – Only monthly usage charges need to pay, no upfront commitment | Azure Storage |
| 21 | Focus | Organization need to spend time and give focus on maintaining HDD in good way along with redundant copies of it | No need to spend additional minute in caring about the storage once data is uploaded. |
Azure Storage |
Just to conclude, ‘Windows Azure Storage Services’ wins in most of the cases and proves to be best option for storage purpose. Use this information wisely in your scenario to analyze the benefits scenarios.
Hope this helps !
Laxmikant Patil 🙂
Laxmikant Patil 
June 14, 2015 at 9:44 am
Hi I am so glad I found your blog, I really found you
by error, while I was browsing on Aol for something else, Anyways I am here now and would just like to say thanks a
lot for a remarkable post and a all round thrilling blog (I also love the theme/design), I don’t have time to
go through it all at the moment but I have book-marked it and also
added your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will be back to read a great deal more, Please do keep up
the excellent jo.