IBM has announced a range of new storage products that are designed to reduce the cost and complexity of storing vast amounts of data while making it easier for users to apply analytics and gain insight from the data.

System Storage Easy Tier is a new approach to delivering tiered storage that helps organisations prioritise critical data.

It uses ongoing performance monitoring to move only the most active data to faster solid-state drives (SSDs), which can eliminate the need for manual storage tier policies and help reduce costs.

For retention and backup of unstructured retention data, IBM has introduced a new Long Term File System and LTO Ultrium Generation 5 tape drive offerings.

It is designed to address the growing storage needs of industries that generate digital media such as Media and Entertainment, Medical and Digital Surveillance.

IBM is also adding a "Many-to-one" replication feature to its ProtecTIER deduplication technology that allows multiple data centres or remote offices to replicate backup data to a central location. By stripping out duplicate data before it's replicated, ProtecTIER can reduce the bandwidth needed to send the data by 95% or more.

The latest version of IBM Tivoli Storage Manager can be used to collect, manage and retrieve the data stored on ProtecTIER. IBM Tivoli Storage Manager provides a broad range of advanced data management capabilities, including backup, archive, migration, and data reduction including, all under a unified recovery management framework that simplifies administration.

IBM is also announcing the latest version of its XIV Storage System. With 2TB drives and lower voltage processors, the new version can double capacity and help reduce peak power usage by up to 59 percent.