You’ve probably already heard that storage capacity needs are growing rapidly, with IDC projecting the digital universe will exceed 40,000 exabytes (40 billion terabytes) by 2020. According to Gartner, organizations are on average growing their capacity 40% to 60% year over year. On the other hand, disk storage densities of SAN and NAS storage arrays are not keeping up with the growth of data, resulting in a looming storage capacity sprawl for many organizations. The potential impact is measured not only in additional floor-space, but also cooling, management and increases in maintenance staff. As a result, many organizations will eventually find themselves trapped in a situation where their storage needs exceed their existing on-premise capabilities – the unenviable position of facing additional investments in infrastructure and people.
In fact, a recent survey we took indicated that a full 60% of users feel that they are «always running out of storage» – a clear indication that this «future» problem is already being felt on the ground.