Primary Storage Still a Worry

December 12th, 2006: According to a new data archiving survey, the top three storage issues facing end users are reaching primary storage capacity, long backup times and long retrieval times of archived data.

The results have been divined from two third-party surveys commissioned by storage vendor PowerFile in the US. With one designed for VARs and the other for end users, the surveys canvassed over 350 resellers and 450 IT staff and storage administrators.

79 percent of VARs and 50 percent of end users indicated that running out of primary storage space was a prime concern, while 77 percent and 62 percent respectively said that long backup windows were also a top level concern. 69 percent of VARs and 45 percent of end users also singled out long data retrieval times as a concern at the forefront of operations.

“The results of our recently commissioned surveys are quite revealing in fully understanding the problems faced by end users today in their attempts at archiving mission-critical information and in the way that resellers look to solve those concerns,” said Jonathan Buckley, VP of Marketing at PowerFile. “By getting the perspective both from the VARs as well as the end users, we get a more complete picture of new archival storage requirements and are better able to address them through our archive appliance solutions.”

The surveys also found that:

• 80 percent of end users are considering some form of archiving solution as part of their overall storage strategy.
• 69 percent of VARs responded that compliance and internal retention policies are equally the top drivers for customers' archival solutions.
• VARs reported that 72 percent of their customers have had problems with hardware, software or media failure in attempting to recover data, while 55 percent of end users indicated suffering similar failures.
• Slightly more than a third of respondents of both polls said that fixed content makes up at least half of end users' corporate data.
• 91 percent of VARs and 85 percent of end users said they were open to a solution that includes optical components in satisfying long-term archiving requirements.

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