Stop Overpaying for SharePoint Storage

Is your Microsoft 365 tenant storage reaching its capacity? Before purchasing more, which can be costly at $0.20 per gigabyte—adding up to $200 monthly per terabyte—it's wise to understand what's consuming that space and how to manage it better. Effectively managing your storage can lead to significant savings.

Understanding Tenant Storage

Your M365 tenant storage is primarily composed of SharePoint and OneDrive content, including files, list items, site pages, and importantly, their version histories. It also includes storage used by embedded SharePoint applications like Microsoft Loop, custom apps, and Exchange mailboxes.

The Challenges of Managing Tenant Storage

Several factors contribute to increasing storage usage and costs. The high price of additional storage is a major concern. While offloading data to cheaper cold storage, like Azure Blob, is an option, remember that retrieving this data can incur costs.

Another significant factor is version history bloat. While a feature like Autosave protects against data loss, it does so by creating a new version of a file with each modification. SharePoint, by default, stores up to 500 major versions per document. This means frequently edited files consume vastly more space than their current size suggests, potentially storing hundreds of copies.

Furthermore, abandoned Teams and SharePoint sites that lack a formal archival process continue to occupy storage with their files and version histories. These inactive workspaces also present security risks due to unclear access permissions.

Finally, the use of large file types common in certain business functions, such as CAD drawings, high-resolution media, or 3D files, can rapidly consume storage. These files can range from megabytes to gigabytes each, and without a management plan, they can quickly exhaust your tenant storage allowance.

Learn how Orchestry can manage your storage maintenance and more. Check out our Workspace Review feature sheet

How to Reduce SharePoint Storage Costs

Fortunately, there are several strategies to optimize your storage.

Set Version History Limits

Within M365 and using PowerShell, you can manage SharePoint version history by setting limits. You can establish organizational defaults, though be aware these can be overridden at the site or library level, and some departments might require longer retention for compliance. For more control, you can set limits on a site-by-site or even library-by-library basis.

Orchestry offers tools to streamline this further. Our Workspace Review feature can automate regular reviews of version history by owners. You can perform a one-time cleanup targeting older, active sites to immediately recover space, and set ongoing, policy-based limits appropriate for different workspace needs, like allowing HR longer retention.

Archive Inactive Workspaces

Archiving old workspaces is another key strategy. M365 Archive provides a native cold storage option for inactive sites. Costs might apply depending on your current usage, and while restoring is free, re-archiving might incur charges. Comparing costs for 10 TB, M365 Archive is $0.05/GB monthly compared to SharePoint's $0.20/GB. Learn more about reducing SharePoint storage costs with Microsoft 365 Archive.

Alternatively, Orchestry's archival policies automate the process, allowing owners to decide whether to archive or renew. Orchestry permits archiving in-place (locking content) or moving content to a dedicated archive site. These policies can also trim version history upon archival. For even greater cost savings, Azure Blob storage offers cold tiers ranging from $0.01/GB down to $0.00099/GB monthly, although restore fees apply.

Manage Storage Limits

Lastly, actively monitor workspaces that utilize large file types. Ensure appropriate version history limits are applied and that these workspaces are archived promptly when no longer needed.
Read more about SharePoint archiving best practices to optimize your storage and reduce costs.

Measure the Results

Regardless of the methods chosen, it's crucial to measure their effectiveness. Tools such as Orchestry Health Checks can provide valuable insights by showing storage growth trends across SharePoint, OneDrive, and Exchange.

Making Storage Work for You

Proactive management of SharePoint storage is the key to controlling M365 costs. By understanding storage consumption drivers like version history and inactive sites, and implementing strategies like version limits, effective archival to appropriate storage tiers, and monitoring large file usage, organizations can significantly optimize their storage footprint. Tools like Orchestry can simplify and automate these critical tasks, helping you stop overpaying and start managing your storage intelligently. To see how Orchestry's Workspace Review can manage your storage maintenance and more, check out our Workspace Review feature sheet.