Combating Rising OEM Storage Costs By Tyler Thomann
Many company budgets are being squeezed right now by storage OEM pricing. Orders that were expected to be one price are coming back materially higher (CRN Feb 2026). Manufacturers are telling buyers some version of: buy right now or expect higher costs later. Storage sellers have tightened the buying cycle and reduced pricing certainty, making it difficult for companies to complete the buying process before costs shift. That leaves customers stuck choosing between absorbing the increase or delaying the project.
With prices on the rise, can enterprises really afford to assume all their data is worthy of storing? Many buyers are moving forward without knowing whether they need all the capacity they are being asked to buy.
Instead of reacting to rising OEM costs, organizations should take a more strategic approach before signing off on a larger-than-necessary investment.
What Is Driving This Unprecedented Price Growth?
Although internal sprawl contributes to the challenge, the main driver of today’s price increases is external market pressure. Already, the cost of a terabyte of storage can be as high as $1,200/TB (all in). Now, the rapid growth of AI has shifted supply & demand across the market, as Jeff Janukowicz noted in The Register (Feb 2026):
“Compared to just a few months ago, pricing for many memory products has nearly doubled. We’re operating in an environment where memory supply is extremely tight, driven by continued growth in AI infrastructure demand… realizing the benefits of AI also requires substantial memory and storage to feed and support that compute. Because memory is pervasive—spanning PCs and smartphones to the data center—the impact is broad-based.”
With memory supply remaining extremely tight, businesses can no longer afford to “throw more storage hardware” at the problem of data growth.
Why Visibility is Your Greatest Asset
It’s one thing to know how much data you have. It’s another to know what that data actually represents. Managing storage at the volume or folder level is like paying for a storage unit without knowing what’s inside the boxes.
- Distinguishing Value from Liability: Without content awareness, a folder of sensitive customer data looks the same as a folder personal employee photos. Understanding the actual content allows you to prioritize high-value assets and delete liabilities that create unnecessary risk and expense.
- Contextual Decision Making: When you understand the “why” behind your data growth, you can implement smarter policies.
- Negotiation Power: Ultimately, data intelligence turns storage from a “black box” expense into a transparent, manageable resource. With storage costs climbing well beyond last year’s numbers, data visibility is the only difference between a smart investment and paying for waste.
Check out: Enterprise Insights
Identify Your Stale and Redundant Data
The fastest way to combat rising costs is to stop paying for data you don’t need. Most organizations are sitting on a mountain of “dark data”: redundant, obsolete, or trivial (ROT) information that bloats budgets.
- Optimize Resources: Identify and eliminate unnecessary storage costs by auditing both on-prem and cloud resources.
- Target Inefficiency: Locate redundant and infrequently accessed files for deletion or transfer to cost-effective cold storage. This frees up premium storage tiers for high-performance, frequently used data.
- Reduce Sensitive Data Copies: By removing unnecessary data copies, you aren’t just saving on disk space, you are reducing the associated costs of data protection and backup licensing.
Tier, Move, and Clean Up to Reclaim Your Budget
To regain a position of strength during infrastructure negotiations, you must understand exactly what is sitting in your storage environment. Strategic data placement is the key to massive savings.
- Tier 1 Reduction: You can achieve significant savings by moving non-critical workloads off pricey Tier 1 storage.
- Secure Inactive Data: Move sensitive but inactive data off production systems. By isolating this data in a privileged network, you maintain security and compliance without paying a performance premium for storage that isn’t being accessed.
Tiering has a broader financial impact than many organizations expect. In addition to lowering primary storage usage, it helps reduce backup volume, secondary storage requirements, and the overall cost of protecting data across the environment.
Check out: NetGap
Develop a Stronger Infrastructure Position
Don’t let market volatility dictate your IT roadmap! By identifying stale data, understanding the AI-driven supply crunch, and aggressively tiering your environment, you can make smarter infrastructure decisions. Before you sign off on that next inflated OEM quote, ensure you are only buying the capacity you truly need!
Reach out directly to Tyler Thomann (tthomann@congruity360.com) if you’d like to discuss Congruity360’s proven approach to unstructured data management.
