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The latest research from Western Digital Corporation has revealed that reliability continues to be more important than cost for enterprises looking to move their data to the cloud.

The survey, which polled 700 senior technology decision makers across three continents including in the energy, finance and healthcare industries, saw cloud budgets remain the leading growth area in IT, with more than four in five (84%) either planning, are completing or have completed cloud migrations.

Yet as far as the UK is concerned, there is less cloud hype than suspected; two in five CIOs (39%) say they have less than 10% of their company’s data in the cloud.

80% of overall respondents say their storage demands are growing, while three quarters (74%) say they need to keep up with performance demands of applications. More than half (55%) say they are not storing enough data to keep the business healthy long term; strategies for correcting this include data analytics (81% of respondents) and secure offline, or cold, storage and archiving (74%).

One of the more interesting parts of the research related to the Internet of Things (IoT). China, France, and the US agree that the Internet of Things is driving a need for change in data centres, while the energy, finance, telecom, and manufacturing sectors are most likely to receive the greatest impact from it.

83% of respondents overall argue the IoT, big data, and mobility drives change in data centres. “The findings of our survey underscore the increasing value of data, where dependable access through reliable storage systems and devices is more critical than ever before,” said Dave Tang, Western Digital SVP.