Ask Pathology Geek
How should laboratories handle digital pathology storage costs?
Whole slide images are massive (often 1-3 GB each). Managing storage costs requires a tiered strategy: fast, expensive solid-state storage for active cases, and cheaper, slower cloud or tape archives for long-term retention.
The Scale of the Problem
A medium-sized laboratory transitioning fully to digital pathology can generate hundreds of terabytes or even petabytes of data annually. Unlike radiology (PACS), where images are measured in megabytes, pathology images are gigapixel files. Standard hospital IT storage budgets are rarely prepared for this volume.
Tiered Storage Strategies
To control costs, IT must implement tiered storage. Active cases (0-30 days) reside on fast NVMe/SSD arrays for immediate, lag-free viewing. Recent cases (1-12 months) move to standard disk storage. Historical cases move to deep archive (tape or cold cloud storage), where retrieval takes hours but costs a fraction of a cent per gigabyte.
Retention Policies
Laboratories should evaluate retention requirements by specimen type, jurisdiction, accreditation obligations, intended use, and organizational policy. Requirements for glass slides and digital images are not always identical and continue to evolve. A documented data lifecycle can keep clinically necessary material accessible without treating every image as permanent high-cost storage.
Key takeaways
- Pathology files are massively larger than radiology files; plan accordingly.
- Implement strict tiered storage: hot for active cases, cold for archives.
- Define clear data retention and deletion policies to prevent budget bloat.