Azure data storage VS on-premises storage

Cost effectiveness

Reliability

Storage types

Agility

on-premises storage

Azure data storage

requires dedicated hardware that needs to be purchased, installed, configured, and maintained

significant up-front expense (or capital cost)

provides a pay-as-you-go pricing model

require investment in new hardware

requires data backup, load balancing, and disaster recovery strategies

challenging and expensive as they often each need dedicated servers requiring a significant investment in both hardware and IT resources.

provides data backup, load balancing, disaster recovery, and data replication as services to ensure data safety and high availability

approach often requires numerous servers and administrative tools for each storage type.

provides a variety of different storage options including distributed access and tiered storage

provisioning and deploying new servers and infrastructure pieces, which is a time consuming and expensive activity

flexibility to create new services in minutes

change storage back-ends quickly without needing a significant hardware investment