In this article, you will learn why proprietary backup storage can be the silent killer in disaster recovery cost-effectiveness, and what you can do to avoid the pitfalls of inflexible backup storage.
When it comes to comparing data backup and recovery solutions, you may not pay much attention to the storage options they support. After all, proprietary backup storage systems do the same core thing: Store information. It might not seem to matter much how your backup platform’s storage works as long as it provides a reliable place to host backups.
Yet, the storage offerings associated with backup tools do play a key in shaping one key aspect of disaster recovery success: Cost. In particular, backup software that uses proprietary storage systems – meaning it doesn’t give you the flexibility to pick and choose between different storage platforms for housing data backups – can bloat backup and recovery costs in ways that are all too easy to overlook.
This directly impacts your return on investment (ROI) — a measure of how much value or savings you gain relative to the amount you spend. When storage costs quietly escalate due to inflexible systems, ROI declines, even if the backup itself appears to function properly.
The role of storage in data backup and recovery
All backup and recovery solutions require storage. They use storage systems to host backup data. They also use storage during recovery, when they pull data from storage and use it to rebuild applications and infrastructure. This is true not just when backing up traditional applications and infrastructure, but also when backing up SaaS platforms like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.
The types of storage offerings that backup platforms support fall into two basic categories:
Flexible storage
Some backup vendors, including MSP360, allow you to choose from a variety of storage solutions. You can configure their platforms to store your data in a location of your choosing.
Proprietary storage
In other cases, vendors require you to use their storage solutions (or the solutions of a specific partner), subject to the pricing and other terms that they define.
Backup vendors that require proprietary storage often pitch this approach as a convenient one. They claim that bundling storage with backup software delivers a one-stop solution – although as we’ll see, the tradeoff for this simplicity is very high costs and very low control and flexibility.
Hidden costs related to proprietary backup storage
Proprietary backup storage can bloat the total cost of backup and recovery solutions in several ways:
Direct storage costs
First and foremost, proprietary storage platforms often charge higher per-gigabyte fees for hosting backup data. If customers don’t have options, there’s nothing to stop storage vendors from charging as much as they want.
Egress fees
On top of direct storage costs, some proprietary storage solutions also charge egress fees whenever data moves out of their storage systems – as it will during recovery.
Lack of archival storage options
Cost-effective storage platforms usually offer a range of storage tiers or classes, each with different price points. This can help businesses save money by moving older backups to lower-cost storage tiers. But if you are forced to use a proprietary storage system without tiering options, you miss out on this cost-savings opportunity.
Limited control
Proprietary storage results in less control over where and how your data is stored, which can pose operational challenges and contribute to higher costs. For example, if you need to place backups in a specific geographic region to meet compliance obligations, your storage proprietary vendor may not offer a location in that region at all, or if it does, it may come at a premium cost.
Lock-in risks
With proprietary storage, you’re locked into one storage platform. If the storage vendor chooses to raise its rates, you have no recourse apart from migrating to a new backup and recovery solution. As Gartner notes, more than three-quarters of businesses have faced increased costs and less flexibility as the result of cloud vendor lock-in.
Less effective recovery
Inflexible storage may reduce the effectiveness of data recovery. If you can’t host backups in a data center or region close to your systems, recovery may take longer due to limited network bandwidth when moving data. You may also have to wait longer for data to “thaw” if the storage vendor doesn’t guarantee immediate availability. These downsides can contribute to higher costs by prolonging downtime during an outage.
Put simply, proprietary backup storage results in much higher costs and many fewer options – whereas backup platforms that allow you to “bring your own storage” give you the ability to shop around and find the best deal for your needs.
Compounding Backup Storage Costs
It’s worth noting as well that the pitfalls of proprietary backup storage tend to compound over time. The more data you have to store, the more you end up paying for a cost-inefficient solution, and the more deeply you become locked in.
That’s why it’s important to nip proprietary backup storage requirements in the bud. The longer you continue to use a backup solution that doesn’t give you storage options, the harder it becomes to switch, and the more money your business hemorrhages.
Who Needs Flexible Backup Storage the Most
Some businesses and stakeholders benefit more than others from flexible backup storage options. In general, the types of organizations that are at highest risk from proprietary storage include:
Managed service providers (MSPs)
MSP profitability hinges in large part on how much MSPs pay for the solutions they offer to clients. Less flexible, higher cost backup cuts into profit margins, making it harder to succeed in the competitive MSP business.
Regulated industries
Businesses in sectors subject to strict compliance requirements may find the rules harder to meet when they don’t have storage options or extensive control over their storage.
Global enterprises
Large businesses that operate across the world benefit from the ability to pick and choose where they host backups. They may want to place different backups in different locations based on the workloads they may need to recover from each backup – because, again, backups that are geographically distant from recovery infrastructure may take longer to restore.
SMBs
Small and medium-sized businesses also suffer from proprietary backup storage because they are likely to find that it doesn’t scale well over time. It may look like a simple and convenient solution at first, but steadily increasing costs, combined with limited control and configuration options, can hamper the ability of SMBs to grow.
Maximize Backup and Recovery ROI with Storage-Agnostic Backup
At MSP360, we’re well aware of the hidden price organizations pay when they can’t choose their own storage infrastructure – which is why we built our data protection platform as a storage-agnostic solution that supports a wide range of storage providers.
Further reading Is Your Backup and Disaster Recovery Vendor Storage-Agnostic?
MSP360 Backup for Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace decouples backup from storage. This means you get to choose where your backups live, and you get the same world-class data protection features regardless of the storage platform you choose.
MSP360 Backup supports storage options that include but are not limited to:
Amazon S3
Highly scalable storage built into the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud. Offers a wide selection of global hosting locations and multiple storage tier options.
Wasabi
Scalable, low-cost storage, offering savings of as much as 80 percent compared to S3 in some cases.
Backblaze
Another scalable storage platform focused on cost-effectiveness. Also significantly less expensive than S3 for many use cases.
MinIO
An open source storage system that is compatible with S3 but can be deployed on infrastructure of your choice. A great option if you need maximum control over storage location and configuration.
By allowing customers to choose the storage solution best aligned with their needs, MSP360 can reduce the total cost of storage by up to 90 percent compared to backup software that requires a specific proprietary storage platform. At the same time, our storage-agnostic approach helps businesses meet compliance requirements and retain full ownership of their data.
| Feature | Proprietary Backup Storage | MSP360 + Storage of Your Choice |
| Base cost per gigabyte | $0.12+ | As low as $0.0059 |
| Egress fees? | Yes | No |
| Control over storage location | No | Yes (choose from cloud or on-prem storage) |
| Who owns the storage encryption key? | The storage vendor | MSP360 |
| Pay-as-you-grow model? | No (usually requires prepaid tiers) | Yes (pay for storage based on what you actually consume) |
Further reading Pricing for Backup Storage
Migrating to Budget-Friendly Backup Storage
If your current backup solution doesn’t provide the flexibility you need, migrating to an alternative, like MSP360 Backup, is a straightforward process. Here are the key steps:
- Assess current backup contract: Examine your billing details, including what you’re paying per gigabyte for storage and any additional cost linked to egress, renewal fees, prepaid storage capacity and so on.
- Deploy a new backup solution: Deploy an alternative backup platform.
- Configure storage of your choice: On the new platform, select the storage option best suited to your needs. (And if you’re not certain what’s best, don’t worry! You can always switch to different storage later without having to rebuild your entire backup strategy from scratch.)
- Optimize storage: To get even more value from the new backup solution, take advantage of features like backup lifecycle policies, automated retention rules and alerts and notifications.
Further reading How to Migrate to a New Managed Backup Solution
Conclusion: Don’t let a proprietary backup storage harm your backup ROI
In a perfect world, all backup and recovery platforms would provide customers the flexibility to choose exactly where and how their backups are stored. In the real world, however, many data protection vendors require proprietary storage that increases costs and reduces flexibility.
Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be this way. Businesses can choose storage-agnostic backup solutions like MSP360, which offers the freedom to select storage options that fit each organization’s budget, performance and compliance needs.
Further reading Best backup storage options and practices.
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