As IT departments increasingly handle greater volumes of data, many are considering a service provider to take over onerous storage tasks such as data back-up, restoration and archiving. Yet many companies are wary of handing over mission-critical corporate data to a third party, and rightly so. Here are a few factors to consider:

1. What is the cost-per-megabyte? For many of those eager to outsource, cost is the key factor. Find out how much each megabyte of data will cost to store.

2. What is the people price? If you keep your data stored in-house, what are the personnel and management costs? Will you need highly-skilled personnel to operate a storage area network? Do those people already exist within your company or would you need to hire additional personnel?

3. How secure will your data be? Yours will certainly not be the only data on the storage farm. Find out if and how your data would be "co-located" with that of others.

4. How stable is the storage company you’re considering? The long-term survival in this over-populated and constantly shifting market is not guaranteed. Behave like an investor and get information about the stability of the companies you are considering.