Is Your SharePoint Storage Costing You More Than It Should?

Microsoft SharePoint is an excellent platform for storing, sharing and collaborating on company documents. But as your business grows, so does the amount of data you accumulate.

At FOS.net, we’ve recently seen Microsoft taking a firmer approach to storage limits, with businesses exceeding their allowance being warned that their SharePoint sites could become read-only unless they take action.

For many businesses, this raises an important question: Are you paying to store information you no longer need to keep in SharePoint?

How Much SharePoint Storage Do You Get?

Most Microsoft 365 business subscriptions that include SharePoint provide:

• 1TB of storage as a starting allowance.
• An additional 10GB for every qualifying licensed user.

For example, a business with 25 employees would typically receive 1.25TB of SharePoint storage.

That might sound generous, but years of project files, documents, images and historical records can quickly consume your allowance.

What Happens When You Exceed Your Storage Limit?

You can purchase additional SharePoint storage, but it comes at a cost.

At approximately 18p per GB per month , here’s what additional storage could cost:

Importantly, these are ongoing charges, not one-off costs.

And as your data continues to grow, so could your monthly bill.

Does Everything Really Need to Be Stored in SharePoint?

This is where businesses can potentially make significant savings.

Think about the information your company has accumulated:

• Completed projects from several years ago.
• Historical customer records.
• Old financial documents.
• Archived photographs, drawings and design files.
• Duplicate files and previous versions of documents.

You may need to retain much of this information, but does it all need to occupy your everyday SharePoint storage? Probably not.

SharePoint is ideal for documents your employees regularly access, share and collaborate on. However, older information that is rarely used could potentially be moved to a more economical storage solution.

Could Azure Files Save Your Business Money?

One option is Microsoft Azure Files, which allows businesses to store historical information in the cloud while retaining access when required.

And the potential savings can be considerable.

For example, based on indicative storage costs:

Azure Files pricing is an estimate based on a suitable lower-cost configuration. Actual costs depend on usage, configuration and access requirements. Migration and ongoing management costs are additional. All figures exclude VAT.

That’s a potential saving of more than 85% on the underlying storage cost.

Of course, Azure Files isn’t a direct replacement for SharePoint. It doesn’t offer the same collaboration and synchronisation capabilities.

The aim isn’t to move everything out of SharePoint. It’s to ensure you’re using the right storage solution for the right information.

Five Simple Steps to Get Your SharePoint Storage Under Control

The good news is that you don’t need to make major changes overnight. Start by understanding your current position.

1. Get a storage report. Ask your IT provider for a breakdown of your SharePoint storage, including which sites, libraries and folders are consuming the most space.
2. Identify the easy wins. Review recycle bins, duplicate files and unnecessary document versions. You may be surprised how much space can be recovered. Always check retention requirements before deleting information.
3. Understand your data growth. How much additional data are you storing each month? At the current rate, when are you likely to reach your storage limit?
4. Consider your archiving options. Identify older information that needs to be retained but doesn’t require SharePoint’s everyday collaboration features. Azure Files or other archive solutions could be more cost-effective.
5. Plan ahead. Monitor your storage regularly and review your options before you reach your allowance. Remember to adjust any additional storage subscriptions when they’re no longer required.

Don't Wait Until You Run Out of Space

SharePoint storage is one of those IT costs that can quietly increase over time.

With Microsoft now enforcing storage limits more closely, businesses need to be proactive rather than simply purchasing more capacity whenever they run out.

A little time spent reviewing your data, understanding how quickly it’s growing and considering alternative storage options could save your business hundreds or even thousands of pounds each year.

The key is having a sensible data management strategy rather than allowing storage costs to grow unchecked.

Need Help Developing a SharePoint Data Management Strategy?

At FOS.net, we help small businesses get more value from their Microsoft 365 investment.

We can review your existing SharePoint storage, identify opportunities to reduce unnecessary costs and help you develop a practical data management and archiving strategy.

Concerned about your SharePoint storage costs, or simply want to understand where you stand? Get in touch with FOS.net today.