Too often, IT managers opt for products with the lowest acquisition cost, only to pay more in operational expenses over the lifetime of the product. Managers must be aware of the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of their storage decisions to avoid budget surprises. Consider the TCO and key cost drivers when making storage decisions.
What You See is Not What You Get
While disk costs have trended downwards, enterprise storage continues to remain expensive. Advances in technology and price erosion have significantly lowered storage's total cost of acquisition (TCA); acquisition costs used to make up 60% of the TCO, but now account for only 20% of the entire solution. Delivering the level of service and availability the enterprise requires, however, has increased the TCO.