Most consumers store data on five or more types of devices
Storage-hungry consumers turn to online services
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16 Jan 2009, Ian Williams , V3
The use of online storage services is set to explode as people store a growing amount of information from a huge variety of sources, according to Hitachi Data Services (HDS).
A recent survey commissioned by HDS found that just over half of users store digital files on five or more types of device, including cameras, hard drives, digital video recorders and USB sticks.
Furthermore, because most people have more than one of each of these, almost a third of respondents admitted to having digital media stored across at least 20 individual devices.
As well as creating a storage headache, this proliferation of data makes home and remote workers susceptible to a number of issues around security and controlling multiple versions of the same file.
According to HDS, the amount of digital storage used by the average British household has resulted in what it calls the "terabyte home", in which the combined capacity of this myriad of storage devices totals over 1,000GB.
To help alleviate these problems, many people are using online storage services as a central repository for securely backing-up and accessing personal data.
"The volume of terabyte homes in the UK and across the world is growing rapidly," said Alec Bruce, global storage solutions consultant at HDS.
"As these millions of households shift their terabytes of data from their home to online storage, we are going to see an unprecedented explosion of digital data, which will send shockwaves through the online storage industry."
Some 64 per cent of survey respondents indicated that internet providers were the most trusted to safely store data, while banks came second with 36 per cent.
"With the recent high-profile data losses by online storage providers, trust is already becoming an issue for consumers. As in the enterprise space, we believe consumers will start to demand guaranteed service levels around the availability and security of their data," said Bruce.
"At the moment, most of the providers have disclaimers protecting them in case they lose data, and consumers are going to wake up to that pretty fast. Providers need to ensure that the storage platforms underpinning their services are robust enough to meet the increasingly tough expectations of consumers, as well as handle exponential growth."
The research found that consumers are already following good business practice in terms of backing up their data. Almost two-thirds of respondents back up their data, 69 per cent of whom do so at least every month.
However, 86 per cent admitted to backing up to a device that also resides in the home meaning that, should their house and belongings be damaged or destroyed, they would almost certainly lose their back-ups as well.
Bruce believes that this combination means that online storage will mature quickly, taking its lessons from the enterprise space, and that providers will soon start to offer "policy-based storage" where, for example, a person's most valuable data is backed up most frequently, as well as special search and retrieval tools to manage the data.
© Incisive Media Investments Limited 2010, Published by Incisive Financial Publishing Limited, Haymarket House, 28-29 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4RX, are companies registered in England and Wales with company registration numbers 04252091 & 04252093
Do you agree?
The road ahead for online storage
This article is an eye opener for many and is right on track. Let's think about this a few steps further. Your digital files can be broken into two categories, 'transient' and 'permanent.' Devices like iPods are there to play music for you, but should not really be considered the permanent residing home for files that you paid money for. USB storage devices (the small keys of 8GB or less) are good for transporting files, but again definitely not a good place for permanent storage. Both of these devices are easily lost, stolen, or broken.
USB and firewire drives served as a good transition backup device for permanent storage after tapes died off (if you are still using tapes, I have an old Ted Nugent 8-track I'm willing to part with). These devices are relatively fast and can hold large amounts of data. But that can cut both ways - back up your wedding photos, home movies, and photos to one and then have it die, get stolen, break, or damaged by lightning, and you'll quickly learn that those are not the best solution. To mitigate this, you can take them offsite and periodically rotate them, but that is a hassle.
A new alternative, made possible when the world (most of it anyway) transitioned from dial-up to broadband connections, is online storage. Sites like MyOtherDrive, box, and mozy allow you to store all your data offsite.
There are so many benefits to storing your data online. Being able to access your data from anywhere there is an Internet connection is one of the first benefits you will notice. Not having to worry about things like redundant storage, RAID, etc. is nice and so is the knowledge that the online storage companies will do that for you.
One minor issue with online storage, is that most broadband connections are not symmetrical. What that means, is that the upload speed from your computer to their computers, is usually 1/10th the speed that you can download. That means that your first backup online will take a day or even many days. However, most services backup quickly the 2nd time because they online send changed files.
Next, comes the issue of trust. Many sites are nothing more than quick "drop-box" style offerings. These are really not much better than a USB key chain. What you need to look for is a site that performs true backup with scheduled unattended operation. Furthermore, you will want 128-bit encryption support for sensitive data. Finally, you want a company that is not just back up focused only. For example, MyOtherDrive blends both online backup and file sharing in one offering.
As for trust - consider companies that look like they will be in business for the "long haul." There are many offerings, but as mentioned, many don't give you both online backup and sharing, or they are running from someone's basement, apartment, etc.
Carbonite, Mozy are good backup offerings. Box and adrive are good file sharing sites, and MyOtherDrive offers both of these in one.
There have already been some business causalities in this space: XDrive had the plugged pulled on it by AOL. MediaMax (Streamload) gave away a lot of free space, attracted many users, clogged up their bandwidth, irked many, and finally folded. OrbitFiles looks like it is tossing in the towel as the site is listed for sale for $30,000.
Stick with a name brand site, make sure they have encryption, unattended operation so you can 'set and forget' the backup, and then sleep well.
Posted by Jason, 17 Jan 2009