Data storage specialist vs storage administrator

The differences between data storage specialists and storage administrators can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 1-2 years to become both a data storage specialist and a storage administrator. Additionally, a storage administrator has an average salary of $92,434, which is higher than the $64,094 average annual salary of a data storage specialist.

The top three skills for a data storage specialist include data storage, architecture and performance issues. The most important skills for a storage administrator are linux, switches, and NAS.

Data storage specialist vs storage administrator overview

	Data Storage Specialist	Storage Administrator
Yearly salary	$64,094	$92,434
Hourly rate	$30.81	$44.44
Growth rate	5%	5%
Number of jobs	70,296	71,753
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 55%	Bachelor's Degree, 65%
Average age	43	43
Years of experience	2	2

Data storage specialist vs storage administrator salary

Data storage specialists and storage administrators have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Data Storage Specialist	Storage Administrator
Average salary	$64,094	$92,434
Salary range	Between $32,000 And $125,000	Between $65,000 And $130,000
Highest paying City	-	San Francisco, CA
Highest paying state	-	California
Best paying company	-	The Citadel
Best paying industry	-	Health Care

Differences between data storage specialist and storage administrator education

There are a few differences between a data storage specialist and a storage administrator in terms of educational background:

	Data Storage Specialist	Storage Administrator
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 55%	Bachelor's Degree, 65%
Most common major	Business	Computer Science
Most common college	-	-

Data storage specialist vs storage administrator demographics

Here are the differences between data storage specialists' and storage administrators' demographics:

	Data Storage Specialist	Storage Administrator
Average age	43	43
Gender ratio	Male, 79.6% Female, 20.4%	Male, 89.3% Female, 10.7%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 8.6% Unknown, 5.1% Hispanic or Latino, 12.3% Asian, 11.1% White, 62.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3%	Black or African American, 8.0% Unknown, 5.0% Hispanic or Latino, 11.7% Asian, 14.0% White, 61.0% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3%
LGBT Percentage	9%	9%

Differences between data storage specialist and storage administrator duties and responsibilities

Data storage specialist example responsibilities.

Deploy and manage EMC CLARiiON storage system.
Engage in managing SnapMirror performance management, fine-tuning.
Live host migrations (HP-UX / AIX / Linux) across arrays and switches.
Work with storage provisioning on VMAX, DMX-3, DMX-4 using SYMCLI, SMC, CLARiiON CX4-960 storage arrays using Unisphere.
Configure and allocate storage on EMC VMAX, DMX-4 / DMX-3, using SYMCLI, Unisphere.
Verify iscsi group and check the authentication.

Storage administrator example responsibilities.

Accomplish using mediums such as: FICON, SNA, ESCON, IP, FC, & ISCSI.
Manage, and deploy LUNS from EMC storage frames to multiple servers using the UNISHERE for VNX and VMAX.
Support teams which manage CentOS.
Manage and support SRDF replications between DR data centers.
Create CIFS, setting up permissions as per customer requirements and manage DFS.
Manage users and groups on a large scale in NIS and LDAP environments.

Data storage specialist vs storage administrator skills

Common data storage specialist skills

Data Storage, 16%
Architecture, 10%
Performance Issues, 9%
EMC, 9%
Capacity Planning, 8%
Provisioning, 7%

Common storage administrator skills

Linux, 7%
Switches, 6%
NAS, 5%
Troubleshoot, 5%
Isilon, 4%
VNX, 4%

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Data Storage Specialist vs Storage Administrator

Updated January 8, 2025

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