PurgeTHE COST OF ROT
Your trash has
a monthly bill.
Every unnecessary terabyte carries a recurring cost.
Store it. Back it up. Move it. Protect it.
THE ANNUAL COST OF KEEPING ONE UNNECESSARY TERABYTE
ON-PREMISES
$2,400per TB / yearCLOUD
$6,000–$9,000per TB / yearMultiply that by the trash in your file shares.
Illustrative total-cost planning estimates, not provider storage prices. Actual costs and achievable savings depend on infrastructure, services, and retention requirements.
SECURITY EXPOSURE
You’re paying to protect data
you should have deleted.
The average data breach costs $4.99 million.
Old employee records. Forgotten customer information. Sensitive files nobody needs anymore.
If you keep them,
they can still be exposed.
IBM, 2026. Overall breach average; not a cost attributed specifically to ROT.
Read the research ↗AI EXPOSURE
250 poisoned documents.
That was enough.
Researchers planted a backdoor in AI models using just 250 malicious training documents.
250 deliberately poisoned documents in training data can change how an AI model behaves.
Know what you’re feeding your AI.
Controlled training experiment by AISI, Anthropic, and the Alan Turing Institute; not a test of ordinary obsolete files or corporate file-share assistants.
Read the research ↗PURGEROT / START HERE
The bill keeps coming.
The exposure stays.
Find what you need. Delete what you don’t.