Uncloud Storage Cost Comparison
Uncloud Storage vs Self Managed Storage
Uncloud Storage vs Business Cloud Storage
This overview will compare first quarter costs, ongoing costs, and data recovery costs between the Uncloud Storage® product and a comparable self-managed data storage solution. All of the statistics in this comparison are sourced from customer projects completed by Uncloud® Solutions, our data storage consulting division.
This overview will compare first quarter costs, ongoing costs and data recovery costs between the Uncloud Storage® product and other industry standard business cloud storage solutions. All of the statistics in this comparison are sourced from customer projects completed by Uncloud® Solutions, our data storage consulting division.
What is a self-managed storage solution?
What is a business cloud storage solution?
Simply put, a self-managed storage solution entails spending valuable time managing all aspects of storing your creative data from the storage hardware, to the software and everything in between
For the purposes of this comparison, the Uncloud Solutions team designed a self-managed storage solution with similar speed, redundancy, and data availability, to the innovative Uncloud Storage® products.
The concept of business cloud storage is simple. When you store creative data, your business uploads the data to a cloud operator for long term storage.
Since your business will rely on the cloud operator to keep your data safe and private, you must trust the cloud storage operator at a very high level.
A word of warning, many of the “inexpensive" consumer-grade cloud storage operators are subsidizing their storage plans with revenue extracted from analyzing, scraping, or AI training on your creative data.
At Uncloud Storage®, we will never do this. Your life’s work will always stay yours, forever. We give you control over exactly what happens to your data.
We will never use your intellectual property to generate revenue, sell or trade it to any other company, or to train generative AI models.
For the purposes of this analysis, we selected major business cloud operators with similar data protection levels to the Uncloud Storage® product.
First Quarter Costs Analysis.
This chart compares the average first quarter costs of a self-managed storage system, and the Uncloud Storage® product in the selected size.
When creating a self-managed data storage solution, your business must purchase all of the equipment needed to securely store the data, upfront, before any data is ever stored.
Setting up the equipment and software to reliably copy and save your creative data requires knowledgeable staff hours or outside consulting services.
Additionally, to accommodate future data growth, your business must purchase more storage capacity than is needed from the start because expanding storage capacity later is often very difficult to integrate with an existing system.
This chart compares the average total first quarter costs associated with a new business cloud storage system and the Uncloud Storage® product in the selected size.
When getting started with a business cloud storage solution, your business must adapt to the constraints of managing and accessing your creative data over the internet.
Since the business cloud must support data management over the internet, many business clouds may not support standard data organizational tools, industry specific applications or may have restrictions on file format and size, necessitating complex workarounds to maintain your business productivity.
Uncloud Solutions, our data storage consulting division, has observed that many creative businesses getting started with the business cloud need an average of 7 billable hours of data management consultation to reach the productivity level they had with their previous data solutions.
The Uncloud Difference
At Uncloud Storage®, since our innovative hybrid-cloud solution is not restricted to data access over the internet, we are better positioned to serve your creative business by supporting all creative file formats, as well as standard data organization tools. These differences help reduce your costs when starting with a new storage solution.
At Uncloud Storage®, your business saves most of the upfront expenses and time commitments for a complete data storage system. Simply subscribe online, and we will have your new, easy to use, data storage system ready to use quickly and without any of the headaches involved with a self-managed system.
Ongoing Costs Analysis.
This chart compares the average ongoing costs associated with a self-managed storage system and the Uncloud Storage® product in the selected size.
Safely storing your creative data on a self-managed storage system requires continuous oversight and maintenance that must be performed by a skilled storage administrator.
In most cases, your creative business may not have a skilled storage administrator on staff and would be forced to contract with a technology services provider to obtain storage administration services on a contract basis. Expect hourly pricing between $100-$200, with monthly account minimums.
On a different note, part of a well designed self-managed data storage system is an offsite backup of your creative data. Self-managed offsite backup often requires the rental of datacenter space, expensive data storage equipment and the knowledge to run it. Only having an offsite backup on an extra hard drive kept elsewhere is a cumbersome process that exposes your business to the risk of data loss from disk failure, incomplete backups, or data corruption.
As of late 2025, the minimum size rental of datacenter space is priced between $900-$1,500 per month plus equipment.
This chart compares the average ongoing costs associated with a business cloud storage system and the Uncloud Storage® product in the selected size.
When your creative data is stored on the business cloud, most cloud operators charge by the Gigabyte, billed monthly, for raw data storage and charge heavy fees for working with your data if their cloud is accessed.
Your creative business should expect to pay fees for accessing your data, deleting your data, and worst of all, downloading your data. Some of these fees, especially download fees, can be up to 300% larger than the monthly storage cost.
The Uncloud Difference
At Uncloud Storage®, we believe in transparent pricing. We charge a predictable, flat rate for storage, and that's it. We do not charge you for working with your own data.
At Uncloud Storage®, your subscription leverages our expertise and our economies of scale to pass the savings on to your business. Ongoing costs are reduced and a complete service is provided without incurring substantial equipment and labor costs.
Data Recovery Costs Analysis.
This chart compares the average per-incident recovery cost associated with a self-managed storage system and the Uncloud Storage® product in the selected size.
Recovering from a data loss incident on a self-managed storage system is often extremely difficult and expensive.
In self-managed storage systems, storage equipment failure is the most common cause of data loss. Recovering from storage equipment failures is often unpredictable. Data recovery services or the involvement of skilled storage administrators may be required. Both of which are associated with high costs and can net incomplete results.
Online restores from consumer-grade cloud solutions may be impossible with large amounts of data, and that hard drive in the closet is probably not complete and may not even turn on after sitting for months unattended.
Unfortunately, in many cases, equipment failures result in permanent, irrecoverable data loss of your life’s work that no amount of money or time can fix.
This chart compares the average per-incident data recovery costs associated with a business cloud storage system and the Uncloud Storage® product in the selected size.
Recovering your creative data from the public business cloud can be time-consuming, extremely expensive, and potentially impossible if your cloud data has been corrupted.
The business cloud is centralized by design, there is only ever one version of your data. If anything ever corrupts that version of your data, for example, accidental deletion or a systems fault, you might never be able to get your complete data back.
Assuming you can get your data back, you must download all of it from the cloud. Depending on your internet speed and how much data you are storing, this task can range from inconvenient to impossible. Business cloud operators may also reduce the speed for downloads which can tie up your internet connection for an extended time.
Remember, data recovery also counts as a download, so your business should expect significant fees when recovering your data.
The Uncloud Difference
If your creative business suffers data loss, the Uncloud Storage® hybrid cloud solution eliminates many points of failure inherent with self-managed storage systems. Our industry leading Rapid Recovery System will get your creative business data recovered in just a few clicks. We only charge a transparent flat fee for disaster recovery, with no hidden fees, and your internet connection will not be tied up with downloading large amounts of data.
At Uncloud Storage®, our hybrid cloud solution eliminates the single point of failure inherent to the traditional business cloud. We only charge a transparent flat fee for disaster recovery, with no hidden fees, and your internet connection will not be tied up with downloading large amounts of data.
Costs Summary.
An effective self-managed data storage solution will always require more hands-on management, more skilled oversight, and more expensive equipment, when compared with the Uncloud Storage® innovative hybrid-cloud solution.
As creatives ourselves, we understand the rigors of what you do to keep your business operational. Time spent dealing with the hands on nature of self-managed storage is time taken away from your creative work and making money.
At every turn, managing your data on the public business cloud is more difficult, more time consuming, and more expensive than the Uncloud Storage® innovative hybrid cloud solution.
As creatives ourselves, we understand the rigors of what you do to keep your business operational. Fighting with the constraints and costs associated with the public business cloud keeps you away from what you do best, running a successful creative business.
The Uncloud Difference
Uncloud Storage® provides the best of both worlds, the speed and privacy of local self-managed storage as well as the worry free nature of our affordable private cloud solution.
Uncloud Storage® is the complete answer for storing and protecting your creative business data. Please contact our business solutions team at sales@uncloudstorage.com with any questions.
