In our Data Health Check 2014, unstructured file data was the biggest cause of storage growth and was listed as the most important data type to recover after a disaster - but it's also the most expensive. What's the answer?

1. ARE FILE ANALYSIS TOOLS
the answer to the data explosion?
IN THE 2014 DATA HEALTH CHECK
UNSTRUCTURED FILE DATA
was the biggest cause of storage growth and was listed as the most important data type to recover
after a disaster. In parallel, hardware and maintenance costs were the biggest cause of storage spend.
FASTEST AREA OF
STORAGE GROWTH
24% of respondents listed
unstructured file data as
the fastest area of
storage growth.
MOST IMPORTANT
THING TO RECOVER
24% of respondents
listed file data as the
most important thing to
recover in a DR situation.
... whilst almost 30% of organisations
have no retention policy or simply
keep all data forever.
BIGGEST COST OF
STORAGE GROWTH
22% and 18% listed
hardware and maintenance
as the biggest cost of storage
growth respectively.
HOWEVER
2 OUT OF 3 BUSINESSES
don’t know which data has been in active use over the last 12 months.
13% Only 13% of businesses use file analysis tools ...
ON THE SUBJECT OF FILE ANALYSIS,
GARTNER’S RECOMMENDATION
is to “Map the organization's unstructured content infrastructure with file analysis tools, and use
subsequent reports to plan for future storage investment and use of current resources.”
Does File Analysis Have a Role in Your Data Management Strategy? Garth Landers, et. al, 6 March 2014