How Fast Is Our Data Volume Growing?

While there is certainty that more and more data will be stored over time, the question is how much data and how fast? IDC reports that enterprise data stores will grow an average of 60 percent annually. This number will fluctuate depending on the enterprise. Using a rough guess for annual capacity planning may be effective but is also very wasteful. IDC also reports that across the industry disk utilization rates range from 28-35%. In order to avoid wasting up to 65% of corporate investment on data storage capacity, some detailed trend analysis is required.

• It is very important to understand the growth rate by type of data. Examination of volume growth trends by type can help storage managers identify possible system problems and anomalous user behavior.
• Data storage managers should collect data and regularly report to management on changes in the volume of data stored
• Data storage managers should keep a weather eye on opportunities to reduce the data volume through elimination of unnecessary or duplicate data and archiving.
• IT management can help abate the unstrained growth of data through user education and policy.

Despite the fact that the relative cost of computer data storage media per unit volume has fallen 63 percent since 1998[i], the overwhelming data volume growth is causing storage costs to grow rapidly. Industry has responded to the market’s need for more intelligent storage of data. A tiered storage model and data deplication solutions have entered the main stream and can help economize on data storage investments.

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[i] Bureau of Labor and Statistics Producer Price Index for computer storage media. http://data.bls.gov