The Datacenter vs. The Edge

“Isn’t cloud storage getting cheaper?” The answer is, “yes, but not fast enough.”

Here’s why: in the datacenter, costs are driven not by hardware, but by operating costs: power, cooling, bandwidth, diesel backup generators, fire suppression systems, expensive networking switches and routers, power distribution systems, vibration isolators, biometric access controls, 24×7 staffing, security patrols, etc. These are costs that you never finish paying for; every day, every week, every month, the bills roll in.

So, it turns out that even with price decreases in the cloud, the gap between buying disk and buying space in the datacenter is actually increasing. The following graph shows the difference, as a multiplier, in price between just buying a 1TB harddrive and buying 1TB of space in the cloud.

Back in 2006, you would have paid a 6x premium over just buying a disk to be in the cloud. In 2012, you will be paying more than 20x for the same deal.

Because Space Monkey’s edge storage network is cheaper to operate than the traditional datacenter-based cloud, Space Monkey is cheaper for you. And Space Monkey’s price advantage will widen over time.

Space Monkey: ushering in a new era of dramatically more affordable online storage.

Originally published on July 5th, 2012 by @alenp