The hidden costs of DIY Disaster Recovery

TL;DR

Storage pricing is not DR pricing. An honest 3-year calculation shows that self-hosted DR costs 2-4× the planned amount once you include bandwidth, headcount, training, drills and failure management.

The line items that disappear from the quote

1. Bandwidth

Replicating 5 TB of data with 5% daily change means ~250 GB/day to the DR site. In Italy a dedicated symmetric FTTH link costs €80-200/month. Rarely counted as "DR".

2. Dedicated headcount

Even semi-automated DR needs:

• 0.3 FTE for job supervision (one sysadmin every morning);
• 0.2 FTE for quarterly drills;
• 0.1 FTE for documentation and audits.

Total: 0.6 FTE = ~€30k/year in fully loaded cost. Almost never in the quote.

3. DR site hardware

Even a cold standby needs:

• physical servers or reserved datacentre capacity;
• replicated storage (with software licences);
• network (switches, firewalls);
• UPS, cooling.

Initial CAPEX for a typical SMB: €25-50k. 5-year amortisation: ~€5-10k/year.

4. Backup and replication software

Enterprise licences (Veeam, Commvault, Acronis full-tier) charge per VM or per socket. For 30 VMs, €8-15k/year in licences.

5. Staff training

A sysadmin who never executed a real DR learns it by doing it badly. Annual training (1-2 courses + time): ~€3k/year.

6. Mistakes and failed restores

The biggest "invisible cost". For every 10 drills, 2-3 fail on the first attempt, requiring iteration and fixes. Average cost of a failed drill: 4-8 person-hours + operational impact.

The real 3-year math

For an 80-employee SMB with self-hosted DR:

| Line item | Annual | 3-year | |---|---|---| | Dedicated bandwidth | €1,500 | €4,500 | | Headcount 0.6 FTE | €30,000 | €90,000 | | Amortised hardware | €8,000 | €24,000 | | Software licences | €10,000 | €30,000 | | Training | €3,000 | €9,000 | | Contingency (15%) | €7,875 | €23,625 | | Total | €60,375 | €181,125 |

The same DR in managed DRaaS (e.g. Sefthy PRO) for the same company costs about €800-1,200/month = €30-43k over 3 years. Saving: 70-80%.

Three mistakes that inflate TCO

• buying redundant hardware without a drill plan: you are paying for an expensive cold standby;
• relying on a single sysadmin who knows the system: when they leave, you restart from scratch;
• not documenting runbooks: every incident becomes system rediscovery.

When self-hosted DR still makes sense

• companies with > 500 VMs and IT teams > 10 people;
• total air-gap requirements for national security;
• sectoral compliance forbidding cloud (rare).

FAQ

Where is the break-even between DRaaS and self-hosted?

Typically around 150-250 VMs for Italian companies. Below, DRaaS is almost always cheaper. Above, it depends on existing IT team.

Are 0.6 FTE unavoidable?

In DRaaS they drop to 0.1-0.2 FTE because the provider handles job supervision and infrastructure.

Should I keep on-prem licences alongside DRaaS?

No. You pay twice. Migrate fully or stay on-prem.

For the cloud vs on-prem comparison, read Cloud DR vs on-prem DR. For realistic BCDR pricing, BCDR pricing for MSPs.