Cloud storage is typically charged based on the number of gigabytes you rent from the cloud storage company. A gigabyte is about 30 minutes of HD video or two hours of SD video, and the actual amount of data that you can store with a single gigabyte can be difficult for the general layperson to understand. How much cloud storage does your business actually need to function? Here are four questions you can ask yourself to determine this number.
What Industry Are You In?
The industry that you’re in will have a massive impact on how much cloud storage you need. Think about it this way: a copywriting company, which will mostly be saving and sending document files, will have a fairly small amount of data stored every day. A 3D modeling company, which will mostly be saving and sending huge 3D modeled and high-quality video files, will have a monumental amount of data stored every day.
How Much Storage Do You Have on Your Hard Drive?
One of the ways you can “cheat” this question and see how much storage you might want to start out with is just to look at your hard drive. Especially if you don’t currently have any cloud storage, you can take a look at how much data is currently stored on your company’s computers. Do you regularly notice lower numbers like 20GB of data, or are you typically seeing much higher numbers, like 500GB of data?
How Frequently Are You Creating New Content?
Companies that regularly create brand-new content will often need more cloud storage, while companies that are regularly adding onto and adapting old content will often need less. A 3D modeling company that is working on one specific video game for four years will need less cloud storage than a 3D modeling company that is creating character datasheets for new characters every week.
What Types of Information Do You Need to Share?
One of the reasons that many companies invest in cloud storage is to share information. It’s much easier to share something you’re working on with your coworkers if you have dedicated cloud storage for it, rather than to share it by trying to email it or scrambling to find a cloud storage website where you can upload it and send the link. If you regularly need to share very large files, you’ll want to invest in more storage than if you only share smaller files on a regular basis.
Infographic created by Clover Network – a leader in helping businesses accept credit card payments
Conclusion
Every business needs a different amount of cloud storage, and you don’t want to end up investing in too much or too little. Investing in too much cloud storage means you’re spending money that you don’t really need to spend, while investing in too little will limit the amount of uploading you can do. If you’re thinking about the amount of cloud storage your business needs, ask yourself these five questions to start the ball rolling.
