Storage Management Strategies for the CIO
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Solid-state storage making a mark
Solid-state storage has moved from “exotic” to “practical” in fairly short order. While its incursion into the hard disk market is still barely a blip on the storage radar, solid-state devices are finding their way into more and more organizations and in a variety of implementations. Twenty-five percent of respondents currently use solid-state storage, a healthy 10 points higher than last fall and nine points more than last spring. Another 9% said they plan to implement some solid-state storage this year, while 30% consider themselves in the evaluation phase. Among companies currently using solid-state, average installed capacity is 7.6 TB. Besides cost, wear out has been frequently cited as another shortcoming of solid-state storage, but only 12% said this endurance issue has kept them from using solid-state.
USING, PLANNING TO USE OR EVALUATING SOLID-STATE STORAGE
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Enlarge USING, PLANNING TO USE OR EVALUATING SOLID-STATE STORAGE diagram.
Running the numbers:
- Solid-state storage shows up most frequently in arrays (71%), with server-based solid-state (43%) a popular alternative
- 58% of those not using solid-state cite its high cost; 37% say their hard disks are doing just fine, while 35% need more solid-state education
- 27% report having more than 10 TB of solid-state installed
- Those planning to buy more solid-state will add an average of 6.3 TB
Key statistic:
Average installed solid-state storage capacity is 7.6 TB
Cloud storage still hazy
You’d be hard-pressed to find many data storage managers who aren’t giving cloud storage service offerings a serious once-over, but it may be a little tougher to find companies ready to commit to the cloud. We continue to see incremental growth and sustained interest, with approximately 21% of those surveyed using non-backup cloud storage services to some degree. Two years ago, only 14% said they were cloud users, so while the overall numbers may still be somewhat small, the growth is real. Disaster recovery (DR) is the most popular application for cloud storage, while the most likely suspect, remote offices, continues to lag. Among companies that aren’t yet using any cloud storage services for primary or near-line applications, only 54% flatly rule out adding cloud services, although another 26% are uncertain if they’ll add cloud to their storage mix.
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICES FOR PRIMARY OR NEAR-LINE
Enlarge CLOUD STORAGE SERVICES FOR PRIMARY OR NEAR-LINE diagram.
Running the numbers:
- Current cloud users are bullish, with more than 90% planning to add more cloud storage services in 2011
- 15% of non-cloud users plan to take the plunge by using cloud storage for DR
- Although there’s still some confusion about what constitutes an internal cloud, 14% of respondents say they already have one and another 8% have implementations planned
- While hybrid cloud configurations are getting a lot of attention, only 6% are using them now
Key statistic:
Current cloud storage users have an average of 16 TB of data parked in the clouds
This was first published in October 2011
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