What are some best practices for managing data storage and processing in PHP applications to avoid increased storage requirements?

One best practice for managing data storage and processing in PHP applications to avoid increased storage requirements is to properly sanitize and validate user input before storing it in the database. This helps prevent unnecessary data bloat and ensures that only valid data is stored.

// Sanitize and validate user input before storing in the database
$userInput = $_POST['user_input'];
$cleanInput = filter_var($userInput, FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);

// Connect to the database and store the sanitized input
$pdo = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=my_database", "username", "password");
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("INSERT INTO my_table (user_input) VALUES (:user_input)");
$stmt->bindParam(':user_input', $cleanInput);
$stmt->execute();