How much storage capacity should I plan for logs and incident data?

Storage requirements depend on user count and monitoring scope:

Estimation Formula:

• Base Formula: 50-100 MB per user per month (average)
• High Activity Environments: 150-250 MB per user per month

Example Calculations:

• 1,000 users × 75 MB/user/month = 75 GB/month (\~900 GB/year)
• 5,000 users × 100 MB/user/month = 500 GB/month (\~6 TB/year)

Storage Recommendations:

• Implement log rotation and archival policies
• Archive incidents older than 90 days to cold storage
• Plan for 3-5 years of retention based on compliance requirements
• Use compression for archived data (typical 60-70% reduction)

Last updated: 2026-04-13