Uncovering Hidden Costs: The ROI of File Archiving (Save $1 million)
We’re in 2025, and many businesses today are becoming increasingly data-centric. In this data-first ecosystem, enterprises end up accumulating large volumes of files that are never opened and just left unused. On average, a mid-sized business today generates over 250 TB of data each year. This figure highlights the massive scale of data production in our increasingly digital world from sources like call logs, customer feedback forms, social media interactions, presentations, emails, video uploads, and other forms of content generation.
These massive volumes of files are more than just clutter–they are a financial drain until appropriately utilized. These large datasets occupy hot storage space within local storage, eventually increasing storage and compute costs. What if you could suddenly avoid all this complexity while also making your data useful? Enter File Archiving.
This blog explores the costs of ineffective file management and the potential benefits and an ROI for an effective file archiving investment.
The Hidden Costs of Ineffective File Management
These unstructured datasets are massively valuable, but only if managed properly. Unfortunately, most enterprises don’t realize the expense of maintaining this data, let alone the upside it could bring.
Let’s break down the actual financial impact of inefficient file management.
First, let’s set some base assumptions:
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Average IT Staff Cost | $36/hour |
| Legal Staff Cost | $200/hour |
| Organizational Size | 1,000 employees |
| Average Cost of Archiving | $100/employee/year |
| Productivity Loss During Downtime | 25% |
eDiscovery and Regulatory Audit:
To comply with eDiscovery requests and regulatory audits, legal teams and IT staff must scour through several thousands of files stored across different systems and storage systems.
- Without a file archiving solution, each incident takes the IT team about 500 man-hours, and the legal teams take about 650 man-hours to comply with eDiscovery requests.
- This translates to $18,000 in costs for the IT staff and about $130,000 in fees for the legal department. Costs amount to $148,000
- With a file archiving solution, IT staff no longer need to locate files for eDiscovery, and the legal staff’s man-hours are halved due to easy access to required documents.
- This translates to $65,000 in legal costs to comply with eDiscovery audits
- Let’s assume there are over ten incidents of eDiscovery audits over 3 years
| Metric | Without Archiving | With Archiving | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| IT Staff Hours | 500 | 0 | 500 man-hours |
| Legal Staff Hours | 650 | 325 | 325 man-hours |
| IT Staff Cost | $18,000 | 0 | $18,000 |
| Legal Staff Cost | $130,000 | $65,000 | $65,000 |
| Total Cost | $148,000 | $65,000 | $83,000 |
| 3-year Cost | $1,480,000 | $650,000 | $830,000 |
Downtime and Loss of Productivity
When servers crash without an existing archiving system, IT teams are required to perform a complete system restoration. During this downtime, employees are left disconnected from critical information, and the organization faces a significant communications blackout.
- Assuming it takes about six hours to restore data, the downtime would result in about $54,000 in loss of productivity for IT teams trying to restore data.
- A unified file archiving system for instant data access and rapid system recovery. Employees can immediately access archived communications. In this scenario, IT teams can quickly restore systems using pre-indexed and organized data, causing minimal downtime (2 hours) in workflows.
- Assuming just two hours of downtime enabled by an effective archiving solution, the costs of restoring the data during downtime would result in just $18,000 in loss of productivity.
- Let’s assume there’s one such outage that occurs each year
| Metric | Without Archiving | With Archiving | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Downtime Duration | 6 hours | 2 hours | 4 hours |
| Cost of Productivity Loss per Year | $54,000 | $18,000 | $36,000 |
| 3-year Cost | $162,000 | $54,000 | $108,000 |
File Recovery and IT Support
During traditional file recovery processes, IT staff manually retrieve files and important emails from complex backup systems involving several backup tapes. Each recovery requires locating the correct backup and manually extracting and verifying files. In several instances, these files are often corrupted and cannot be recovered, often adding to significant admin overheads and increased employee frustration.
- This whole process consumes over 6,000 man-hours for IT teams, assuming 12,000 file recoveries per year and a recovery time of ~30 minutes per file. This translates to about $216,000 in IT staff costs.
- With an effective archiving solution, employees can access their archived files when needed through near-instant search and retrieval. Pre-indexed and properly organized files and records would allow immediate access to archived files without much deliberate IT involvement.
- Assuming recovery time is reduced to 5 minutes per file, the IT staff would cost $36,000.
| Metric | Without Archiving | With Archiving | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recovery Time per Hour | 30 minutes | 5 minutes | 25 minutes |
| Total Annual Hours | 6,000 | 1,000 | 5,000 |
| Annual Cost | $216,000 | $36,000 | $180,000 |
| 3-Year Cost | $648,000 | $108,000 | $540,000 |
Total Cost Savings
| Category | Savings |
|---|---|
| eDiscovery Audits | $830,000 |
| Downtime Prevention | $108,000 |
| File Recovery | $540,000 |
| Gross Savings | $1,478,000 |
| File Archiving Solution Cost | ($300,000) |
| Net Savings | $1,178,000 |
Net savings over 3 years – $1,178,000!
The lack of an effective archiving system and a missing archive and purge policy within the enterprise have proven expensive. However, beneath the loss in workforce productivity lies a more significant cost that could surpass even the million-dollar upside of a file archiving investment. Opportunity cost due to sidetracked employee focus represents a staggering drain on organizational potential.
When employees spend excessive time searching for documents, fixing avoidable IT downtime, or managing overcrowded storage systems, they are diverted from higher-value activities that could drive innovation and growth. This invisible tax on employee productivity manifests itself in delayed timelines, missed market opportunities, and diminished creative output, all of which only compound over time.
Investing in picking the right archiving solution for your enterprise could help you avoid all the direct and indirect costs associated with poor data management while maximizing workforce productivity and strategic focus.
Beyond Monetary Benefits
Apart from monetary savings and avoiding opportunity costs, effectively archiving your files can have the following benefits:
- Preserving historical records and organizational intelligence
- Ensuring compliance and effective risk management
- Enabling AI and advanced analytics
- Improving operational efficiency and cybersecurity
Bottom Line
With modern technologies and newer threat vectors, the cost-benefit analysis for archiving shifts from saving storage and file management costs to avoidable larger non-compliance fines, governance lapses, and increased productivity gains.
Effective file archiving helps your organization prevent the next potential million-dollar non-compliance lawsuit or data breach. By picking the right vendor, your investment pays for itself, and derived benefits go much beyond realized monetary value.
*Please note these numbers are merely estimates; the costs of real-world implementations may vary based on your requirements.
Solix File Archiving
Backed by the Solix Common Data Platform, the Solix File Archiving solution is an end-to-end unstructured data archiving offering that enables enterprises to effectively archive files in cloud, hybrid, or on-prem systems.
Alongside robust archiving capabilities, Solix File Archiving has key features like legal hold and policy-based retention management. These enable organizations to meet compliance requirements while optimizing storage costs and improving system performance through intelligent data lifecycle management.
