Where's All the Data Gone?

Eric Savitz over at Tech Trader has an interesting article today.


Demand at Seagate is down and consolidation of the industry is expected. However as recently as March last year EMC was telling us how storage growth just keeps on spiralling upwards.


So what's happening? Are we becoming inherently more efficient at storing our data all of a sudden, now that a credit crunch is upon us? Somehow I don't think so.


Demand ebbs and flows as finances dictate the ability to purchase new equipment, but growth remains steady. Technology is replaced constantly but just like you or I might hold on to our car for another year or so before replacement, so will IT departments, preferring to pay maintenance on existing kit rather than rip and replace to the latest and greatest. I can see two consequences from this;

• More time and effort will need to be paid to using current resources more efficiently.
• Migration to new hardware will need to be even more slick and quick to reduce the overhead of migration wastage.

I'll discuss these subjects in more detail this week.