Comment by josteink | Hacker News Reader

Comment by josteink | Hacker News Reader

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Talking to my IT department, it seems the argument is that storage is only cheap in isolation. In the real world it aggregates across products, users and hierarchies.

Example email:

- I want bigger mailbox to handle bigger mails incoming and outgoing. Result: bigger mailbox.

- Then everyone else in the company gets bigger mailboxes. Result: bigger mailbox x1000.

- Also: bigger mail-server backups.

- Also: bigger desktop/user-profile backups, because Outlook duplicates all this info locally.

- Also: bigger storage needs for anything also interacting/duplication selected mail (like CRM, import services, whatever).

- Also: bigger backups needed for all those systems.

- Etc etc.

And IMO it's a perfectly valid claim.

Maybe storage "only" costs $0.1 per 100GB in isolation (or whatever), but for a full company with all systems involved, in aggregate it quickly it may exceed 1000x that.

> - Then everyone else in the company gets bigger mailboxes. Result: bigger mailbox x1000.

This doesn't have to be so. Some users have genuine reasons to require more mailbox storage. Not everyone has the same needs. And if 1000 users really need more space, then either they should be given the space they require, or they're doing something wrong that can be solved by technical means (like sending links to large files instead of the files themselves).

> - Also: bigger desktop/user-profile backups, because Outlook duplicates all this info locally.

This can be configured to some extent.

> This doesn't have to be so. Some users have genuine reasons to require...

Indeed. Organisations cause them all sorts of problems by not allowing exceptions to the rules.

So your company refuses to spend...1000 x $0.1 = $100 to avoid deleting or dropping emails? That seems incredibly short-sighted.

That's a silly argument for something like bios files that would take up less than 0.1 to 1% of the size of current storage that they are maintaining and which will only grow. They're not backing up email and desktops here, we're talking about drivers and bios. It's like comparing grapes and watermelons.

Only asking because the price is already being multiplied by 'users' further down: where do one get 100 GB for $0.1 for mailbox storage?

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