Data Hoarding Dangers: How Storing Too Much Can Cost You Big?

Summary: Data hoarding is the storage of digital information that no longer has any viable use. It is a pressing issue in many organizations where employees save data out of habit or fear of loss. There is a need to trim data hoarding periodically through a streamlined storage policy. We explore multiple strategies that suit both individuals and businesses. If during this process, important data is deleted by error, data recovery services can quickly retrieve it with minimum hassle.

Storage costs have reduced a lot in recent years, and continue to do so. In 2009, data storage cost $0.114 per gigabyte, which has dropped to a minuscule $0.0144 per gigabyte.

Due to this massive drop in cost, the computers and personal devices we use have more storage than ever before. An average new laptop has between 512 GB and 1 TB of installed storage. Desktop computers have even more since they can be upgraded easily.

With this increased capacity, a new phenomenon known as data hoarding has come into being. Data hoarding is the practice of keeping large amounts of data that is no longer needed or is rarely used.

Over time, this practice causes many problems, such as:

• Increased costs
• Security risks
• Decreased productivity
• Environmental impact

However, there are some simple practices that you can do, to ensure these problems never happen to you.

This guide provides expert insights and tips to help you tackle digital clutter and streamline your digital life.

We shall cover: 

1. What is Data Hoarding? 
2. What are the Types of Data Hoarding? 
3. What are the Risks Associated with Data Hoarding? 
4. How to Overcome Data Hoarding? 
5. Secure your Data with Stellar Data Recovery Services
6. FAQs 

What Is Data Hoarding?

Data hoarding is the excessive storage of digital information that no longer has any valid use. The availability of cheap storage has created this unique situation where individuals and organizations never delete vast amounts of digital data, from emails and documents to databases.

The root cause of data hoarding is the fear that deleting data might expunge something that might be useful down the line. Thus, everything including backups and ‘backups of backups’, is maintained forever.

Data hoarding has also become a pressing issue in many organizations where employees save data out of habit or fear of loss. As data volumes grow exponentially, there is a significant security risk attached to it. Every business must identify the root cause of the problem and then take steps to address data hoarding.

In the next section, we look at the various types of data hoarding.

What Are the Types of Data Hoarding?

The practice of data hoarding can be seen in both personal and professional settings. Here are a few common categories of digital hoarding.

1. Individual Hoarding

Many individuals accumulate digital files, such as photos, videos, emails, and documents, without any clear purpose. This hoarding behavior is often driven by a psychological attachment to the data and a fear of losing valuable memories or information.

2. Corporate Hoarding 

Organizational hoarding occurs when companies collect and retain large volumes of data. This may include customer information, transaction records, and internal communications.

Organizations usually justify this practice for regulatory compliance and data analysis. But often, this data is obsolete and should be deleted to prevent the risk of a data breach.

3. Voluntary Hoarding 

Voluntary hoarders like to maintain their digital copies of what is available on the internet. They consider themselves as digital archivists who are preserving the internet for posterity.

Voluntary hoarders often download entire websites to preserve content that may disappear over time. They also archive discussions and blog posts from web forums out of fear that valuable information might one day vanish if the forum site is shut down or hacked.

What Are the Risks Associated With Data Hoarding?

Data hoarding can pose serious threats to a company. Here are some potential risks associated with data hoarding:

1. High Storage Costs

Storage is indeed cheap, but when data is measured in hundreds of terabytes and multiple backups, the cost begins to escalate. Storing and managing large volumes of data requires significant allocation of resources. While hardware has become affordable, the cost of electricity, ventilation, and air conditioning systems and above all personnel to manage and maintain them continues to rise.

2. Privacy and Security Risks

There is a significant risk of hoarding personal information. The more data you store, the greater the likelihood of being targeted by cybercriminals leading to identity theft, financial loss, and reputational damage. This is why GDPR requires that the smallest amount of data needed for business requirements should be stored and the rest deleted.

3. Operational Inefficiencies

While data analysis is of paramount importance there is a definite possibility of overdoing it. Too much data can overwhelm both statistical models and offer wrong insights to decision-makers. Identifying relevant information among vast amounts of digital clutter is nearly impossible if it has not been pruned from time to time.

4. Environmental Impact

Last but not least is the impact on the environment. Servers and hard disks have a limited lifespan of a few years. Frequent replacement adds to the huge amounts of electronic waste or e-waste. Moreover, data storage on a large scale consumes a lot of electrical power, which contributes to a larger carbon footprint.

Proper data management practices reduce data hoarding and mitigate these risks.

How to Overcome Data Hoarding?

The risks of data hoarding are real, but the solution is surprisingly simple. Here are a few practical strategies to break free from data hoarding:

For Individuals

1. Set Clear Goals: Ask yourself why you are storing some types of data and if there’s no clear purpose, consider deleting it. There is no need to maintain old emails and other digital clutter of no consequence.
2. Set Storage Limits: Establish storage quotas for each type of data (e.g., media, documents, personal files). Once you reach the limit, delete some files before adding new ones.
3. Delete Regularly: Schedule regular data clean-up sessions. Clean up your email accounts once a month. Sort them into folders and delete the extraneous ones. Do the same for media files that you no longer need since these take up the most space on the hard drive.
4. Use Cloud Storage: Cloud storage is an excellent alternative to local storage. You can store rarely accessed data in the cloud where it doesn’t clutter up your primary storage.

For Businesses

1. Establish Clear Data Policies: Every organization must set up clear policies that specify what types of data are to be retained and for how long. There has to be bifurcation of critical and non-critical data and unnecessary information has to be purged regularly.
2. Conduct Regular Data Audits: Implement regular audits of stored data to find out outdated information. This periodic review will help clean out unnecessary files and ensure that only relevant data is retained.
3. Utilize Data Management Tools: Invest in cloud-based repositories for data. Cloud data warehouse provides a secure platform for storing and processing data. Examples include Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and MongoDB Atlas.
4. Automate Data Deletion Processes: Wherever feasible, employ automated data deletion processes. It is easy to create an SQL Agent job that executes a series of batch delete statements.

These simple, effective strategies will help curb the amount of data you store. But when you are throwing out unnecessary data, by error you can end up deleting important information. In such cases, don’t panic because specialized tools and services can easily restore lost files and databases.

Secure Your Data With Stellar Data Recovery Services

While it is imperative to delete digital clutter, mistakenly deleting critical data can be disastrous for your business continuity. In situations like these, Stellar Data Recovery offers data retrieval with minimum hassle. Stellar Data Recovery Software can handle a variety of data loss scenarios and help get your data back easily.

For more complex situations, Stellar Data Recovery Services offers professional data retrieval in the lab. We operate India’s only Class 100 cleanroom where in a completely dust-free environment our engineers can recover data from physically damaged storage devices.

Whether you’re tackling everyday data loss or complex failures, you can rely on Stellar Data Recovery to offer a quick and affordable solution to your problem.

Now we shall answer a few questions our readers have asked us about data hoarding and deletion. If you have any queries, please write to us or comment below.

FAQs

1. What is Dark Data?

Dark data is data that is collected, and processed but is not used for analysis. It can be unstructured or semi-structured and is often difficult to search.

Dark data can be an untapped resource for organizations. However, it can also be costly to store over long periods. Organizations need to identify dark data that can be disposed of and delete it at intervals.

2. What is Data Minimization, and how does it help prevent Data Hoarding?

Data minimization is the practice of collecting and storing the minimum amount of personal data. It effectively prevents data hoarding by limiting the amount of information collected and retained.

Thus it becomes quite impossible to collect unnecessary data over time. It is an excellent practice for organizations that want to minimize data hoarding.

3. How much does Data Hoarding Cost a Company financially?

While storage has become cheap, the scale of data hoarding has reached stratospheric levels. Therefore, it is important to focus on costs and keep it manageable.

The maintenance cost for a petabyte of data stored on-premises can be around $375,000. This is in addition to the cost of the hardware, which can be around $500,000.

The cloud is somewhat cheaper but not by a lot. The cost of Azure Blob Storage can be around $12,000 per month on a three-year plan. Therefore, getting rid of unnecessary data can be indeed profitable for your business.