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In today's rapidly evolving IT landscape, organizations increasingly adopt cloud and cloudlike storage. The key is to find a storage-as-a-service provider whose platform closely aligns with your organization's needs.
By storing data in the cloud, organizations can ensure that their data is secure, accessible and easy to manage, all while driving down storage costs. Storage as a service (STaaS), though, is a general term and could include a variety of types. These providers commonly fall into one of three categories: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), specialized storage and capacity on demand.
This article outlines several leading STaaS providers in each of these categories. Providers are listed in alphabetical order per section.
IaaS is most commonly associated with cloud hyperscalers and is available in the form of raw, scalable storage that developers or IT teams can use. These storage platforms are built for scalability, performance and reliability. Unlike consumer-grade products, they do not typically include an interface for sharing files or collaborating on data. If such features are needed, it's up to the application developers to build them.
Alibaba Cloud designed Object Storage Service for unstructured data storage and intended it for high durability and massive scalability. Alibaba provides various controls such as data lifecycle management and access control. Alibaba's high-performance file storage, Cloud Parallel File Storage, can be used for high-performance computing workloads and adheres to a scale-out architecture supporting parallel access.
Alibaba also provides file storage through Apsara File Storage, which is better suited to more conventional file storage workloads and is accessible through protocols such as NFS and SMB. Businesses can use Alibaba's block storage for databases, VMs and transactional workloads.
The Amazon Web Services cloud offers several different storage options, each designed to handle a specific use. As an example, S3, Amazon's object storage, is well suited for storing large volumes of unstructured data. Similarly, Amazon offers block storage as a part of its Elastic Block Store service, which is usually for storing Elastic Compute Cloud VM instances. In addition, Elastic File System is for file storage and is compatible with commonly used file systems. Finally, Amazon S3 Glacier storage is for cheaper data archiving.
Like other cloud-based object storage products, Google Cloud Storage is suitable for storing all manner of unstructured data. Google makes block storage available to its customers through Persistent Disks, which customers can use with VMs or database workloads. Google's file storage service, Filestore, is accessible through the NFS protocol.
Like AWS, Microsoft's Azure cloud includes several services delivering various types of storage. Microsoft's object storage, Azure Blob, is optimized for unstructured data types such as files, documents and media. However, Azure Blob also includes tiers that are intended for use as archival storage. For users who need to create cloud-based VM instances, Azure's preferred service is Azure Disk Storage. Azure Files, which exposes a cloud-based file system through the SMB protocol, is a more traditional file system.
Specialized cloud storage is tied to a web interface that enables the storage to be used for a specific purpose. As an example, a specialized cloud storage service might assist with sharing documents among teams or uploading large files.
Box is an enterprise file-sharing platform. Not surprisingly, Box focuses heavily on security and compliance. In addition to its core security offering, Box offers services that are specifically geared toward ensuring compliance with regulations ranging from GDPR to FedRAMP. The company also offers additional services, such as Box Shuttle, for content migration, and Box KeySafe, which helps to protect encryption keys.
Dropbox is another popular file-sharing platform. Dropbox offers plans that are designed for use by consumers, but the company also has professional and enterprise-grade plans. The plans largely differ from one another in terms of storage, retention period, volume of data transfers included and number of users supported. However, the Advanced plan includes single sign-on and compliance-tracking capabilities, advanced key management, role-based access control and tiered management.
Microsoft 365 is an entire suite of cloud applications with services ranging from email to project management. Enterprise-grade storage and file sharing are delivered through services such as OneDrive for Business and SharePoint. OneDrive enables users to securely store, access and share files from almost any device. SharePoint is designed more for collaboration and high-volume content management. It fully supports version controls, permissions management and data backups, and integrates with other Microsoft 365 applications.
ShareFile is a platform for secure document sharing, automation and e-signing. The company offers several different plans. Features such as threat detection, feedback and approval, and encrypted messaging are included in the most basic plan. Higher-end plans are designed to comply with regulations such as HIPAA and offer features such as unlimited e-signatures, document request lists and AI-driven secure share recommendations. The company also offers plans geared toward accounting, with features tailored to the unique needs of accountants.
WeTransfer is also a file-sharing service, though it is primarily geared toward sharing or sending large files that are too big to transfer through email. While the company offers some consumer-oriented plans, it also provides enterprise plans supporting advanced access management, single sign-on, custom transfer rules and advanced logging. Additionally, WeTransfer enables users to create content lifecycle management policies that automatically expire content after a specified amount of time.
Capacity-on-demand storage is commonly used in hybrid cloud environments, as a mashup of traditional and cloud storage. Like traditional storage, capacity on demand is hardware-based and installed in an organization's own data center. It's different from more traditional data center storage hardware in that the storage-as-a-service providers bill the hardware like a cloud service. In other words, businesses can have extra storage capacity sitting in the data center, ready to use. However, they only pay for the storage that they use.
Dell advertises Apex as an end-to-end portfolio that it offers through an as-a-service subscription plan. As such, Apex includes far more than just storage. Servers, data protection and HCI systems all fall under the Apex umbrella. Customers choose the technology that they want to deploy; select the deployment, support and other services that they want; and select the terms of the consumption agreement. Storage services are billed based on either raw capacity or usable capacity, depending on the product.
GreenLake is HPE's hybrid cloud platform. Like Dell Apex, storage services account for only a small part of HPE's GreenLake offerings. HPE offers several different GreenLake for Storage configurations including Mission Critical, Business Critical and General Purpose. These configurations vary in terms of both the hardware and the recommended use. Apart from the Business Critical configuration, businesses can choose from Cost-optimized, Performance or Balanced tiers. The Business Critical configuration can be Performance or Balanced.
IBM Storage as a Service is based around the company's FlashSystem and DS8900F hardware. This data storage hardware is deployed on-premises, with storage billed using consumption-based pricing, similar to what cloud providers use. IBM uses AI-driven monitoring as a tool for helping admins manage their storage and forecast capacity-planning needs. IBM offers three separate Storage as a Service tiers: Extreme, Premium and Balanced. These tiers differ in terms of capacity, performance and availability.
NetApp Keystone is designed for hybrid multi-cloud by supporting object, block and file storage on-premises and in the public cloud. NetApp has simplified the billing process by adopting a single, pay-as-you-go subscription that covers storage used both on-premises and in the cloud. Users can scale all this available capacity as needed. NetApp has centralized storage provisioning and monitoring through its BlueXP tool. NetApp offers multiple tiers of service. The company's Extreme and Premium tiers come with an uptime guarantee of 99.999%.
Like NetApp Keystone, Pure Storage Evergreen//One is designed to simplify storage as a service by using a single, unified subscription for all storage, regardless of whether it exists on-premises, in a hosted environment or in the public cloud. The Evergreen//One catalog offers several different classes of block, file and object storage, as well as storage for use by AI or as a unified data repository. These tiers vary in terms of cost, performance, latency and commitment.
Brien Posey is a former 22-time Microsoft MVP and a commercial astronaut candidate. In his more than 30 years in IT, he has served as a lead network engineer for the U.S. Department of Defense and a network administrator for some of the largest insurance companies in America.
10 Jul 2025