A method for data steering in tiered storage is described. In one embodiment, the method includes ranking storage areas of a storage device according to latency of access. In some embodiments, the storage areas include at least a first storage area and a second storage area. The method includes identifying first data at the storage device, passing a portion of the first data through a compression algorithm, and analyzing a result of passing the portion of the first data through the compression algorithm. In some cases, the result includes a score of compression savings associated with the portion of the first data. If the result satisfies a threshold associated with the first storage area, the first data is stored in the first storage area. If the result satisfies a threshold associated with the second storage area, the first data is stored in the second storage area.