Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) has unveiled a product at the CeBIT show in Hanover designed to help companies search and retrieve unmanaged data scattered throughout the enterprise.

The firm claims that around 80 per cent of company data is unstructured and located outside a managed database or email environment.

HDS reckons that only four per cent of this data is managed by a content management system.

A report from analyst firm IDC calculated that ineffective search costs companies an estimated $5,251 per worker per year.

"A large percentage of corporate data is considered unmanaged or 'rogue', posing a serious security and compliance risk to businesses," said Laura DuBois, research director of storage software at IDC.

"As companies grapple with how to manage this information and put policies around it, IT departments are looking for the best solutions to manage their expanding information vaults."

The new Hitachi Data Discovery Suite offers powerful content index and search services across network attached storage, content archive environments and areas traditionally ignored by search technology.

The platform offers common search, retention, movement and protection of data within an integrated services oriented platform, according to the company.

"Organisations are spending millions a year in e-discovery compounded by escalating expenses associated with storage sprawl in environments with large amounts of file-based or unstructured data," said John Mansfield, senior vice president of global solutions, strategy and development at HDS.

"Previous generation file storage products were not designed to be efficient in terms of storage utilisation and data management.

"We are taking our experience in storing and managing block storage environments and extending that strength to file services, reducing the risk of rogue data while improving operating efficiencies."

The Hitachi Data Discovery Suite takes an integrated services approach to storage, helping users to search multiple data sources with a single query from a single user interface.

By enabling customers to conduct their own searches and recover data from their own authorised files, HDS claimed that it also improves user productivity while ensuring data privacy.

"We view rogue data as a critical problem that the market and our customers are trying to solve," said Michael Hay, senior director of product strategy at HDS.

"Even moderate amounts of uncontrolled rogue data can increase the potential of not finding the right data at the right time."