Three kinds of storage, three jobs
Cloud storage comes in three shapes because software reads data in three ways. A database wants a fast disk it owns. A group of web servers wants one shared folder. A backup system or a media library wants somewhere cheap to put millions of files and fetch them by name. Using the wrong kind costs money or speed, so start from how the software works.
Block storage: a disk for one server
Block storage behaves like an extra hard disk attached to a single cloud server. It is the right place for databases, application data and anything that needs low-latency reads and writes. Volumes start at ₹3,000 a month, and performance (IOPS) rises with size, so a bigger volume is also a faster one.
A block volume belongs to one server at a time. If two servers need the same files, use a file system instead.
Scalable file system: one folder, many servers
A scalable file system is network storage several servers mount at the same time, like a shared drive. It suits web servers behind a load balancer that must see the same uploads, build servers that share artefacts, and teams that need a common data folder. It starts at ₹3,600 a month and can be billed monthly or for three, six or twelve months.
Object storage: cheap, huge, by name
Object storage keeps files as objects in buckets, read and written over an S3-compatible API. It does not behave like a disk — you cannot run a database on it — but it is the cheapest place for large amounts of data: backups, media libraries, logs, static website assets and data sets. Billing is by peak usage in the month: the first slab is a flat ₹750, and beyond it you pay by the gigabyte.
Most backup tools, WordPress offload plugins and app frameworks speak the S3 API, so object storage usually works without code changes.
Images, snapshots and parallel file systems
Three specialist options round it out. Saved server images let you clone a configured server, billed per GB a month. Snapshots capture a volume at a moment in time, billed per GB. A high-throughput parallel file system feeds GPUs with training data fast enough to keep them busy, billed per GB a month — worth it only when storage, not the GPU, is your bottleneck.
A simple decision guide
If one server reads and writes it constantly: block storage. If several servers need the same files at once: a scalable file system. If you are keeping lots of files, backups or media and reading them by name: object storage. If you are training models and the GPUs wait on data: a parallel file system.
- Database or app data on one server → block storage
- Shared uploads across web servers → scalable file system
- Backups, media, logs, static assets → object storage
- GPU training data at high throughput → parallel file system
Keeping storage costs down
Storage bills grow quietly. Move old backups and rarely-read files from block volumes to object storage. Delete snapshots you no longer need. Size block volumes for real growth rather than worst cases, and resize later. Review storage line by line every quarter — it is usually the easiest saving on a cloud bill.
Example setups
A WordPress or WooCommerce site on a single cloud server usually needs nothing more than the server's own disk for the database and code, plus object storage for backups and, if the media library is large, for offloaded images. Two web servers behind a load balancer add a scalable file system so both see the same uploads. A data or AI team keeps raw datasets in object storage, copies the working set to fast block storage or a parallel file system near the GPUs, and writes checkpoints back to object storage.
Starting from the job rather than the product keeps the bill small: most setups need one kind of storage for live data and object storage for everything else.
Moving data between storage types
Moving data later is normal. Old database exports and logs move from block volumes to object storage with any S3 tool. A site that grows from one server to two moves its uploads folder to the shared file system. Large one-off transfers go fastest within the same datacenter, so copy between servers and storage inside the cloud rather than downloading and uploading again from an office connection.
Whatever you move, check it arrived — compare file counts and sizes, and open a few files — before deleting the original.
Security for stored data
Object storage buckets should be private unless a file is meant to be public, such as a website image. Use access keys with the narrowest permissions the tool needs, keep them in environment variables rather than in code, and rotate them when someone leaves. Encrypt backups that contain personal data before they leave the server, and delete what you no longer need — data you no longer hold cannot leak.
Estimating how much storage you need
Start from what you have today and how fast it grows. Measure the current database and file sizes, check how much they grew over the last few months, and plan for a year of that growth with some headroom. For backups, multiply the size of one backup by the number you plan to keep. Logs and old exports are easy to forget and often the fastest-growing data of all, so give them a retention rule from the start.
Storage is priced per GB per month, so the calculator turns those estimates into a monthly figure. Recheck every few months; storage that only ever grows is usually holding something nobody needs.
Mistakes to avoid
The common storage mistakes are simple. Keeping the only backup on the same disk as the data. Making a bucket public to share one file and forgetting it. Storing uploads inside an app's release folder, where the next deploy replaces them. Using the most expensive fast storage for archives nobody reads. Each is avoided by choosing storage for the job, as above, and writing down where each kind of data lives.
Key takeaways
The short version, for anyone skimming:
- Block storage is a fast disk for one server — from ₹3,000 a month.
- A scalable file system is a shared folder for many servers — from ₹3,600.
- Object storage is the cheap home for backups and media — from ₹750 a month.
- Choose by how the software reads data, not by price alone.
- Review storage quarterly and move cold data to object storage.
Cloud Storage
Block volumes from ₹2,599/month, S3-compatible object storage at ₹1,049 flat for 250 GB, snapshots, continuous backup and parallel file systems for AI. Block volumes with IOPS scaled to size · S3-compatible object storage · Snapshots at ₹5.49 per GB per month.
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