Managing Data Growth: How to Store & Protect Your Data

The Explosion of Digital Data

Digital data is experiencing exponential growth, and this data explosion is impacting all parts of our society, from personal data to enterprise data and everything in between. Industry analysts predict that the amount of data stored electronically will more than double every two years, reaching 35 trillion gigabytes or some 35 zettabytes!  That’s enough data to fill a stack of DVDs reaching from the Earth to the moon and back.

Companies of all sizes are reporting massive data increases from 32% to 100% per year

How to Store and Protect All That Data?

One of our biggest challenges is: where do we put all that data?  To manage your company’s electronic data growth, you need to look for ways to easily and cost-effectively protect, store, and restore that data.

Here Are Different Ways to Manage Your Growing Data:

• Primary Storage: Makes data available for the fastest access by end users or applications.  Also called “production” storage.  Use an onsite storage solution for primary storage, such as a Network Attach Storage (NAS) device, so you can grab your data quickly when you need it.
• Backup Storage: Retains a second copy of the data in case the primary copy is deleted or corrupted.  Often called Backup Disaster Recovery. This is an ideal time to use an online or cloud-based solution, such as Symform, rather than a secondary, physical datacenter or location.
• Remote Storage: An “offsite” location holds a separate copy of the data in case the primary data center and its contents are destroyed.  Increasingly, the cloud is, again, the best remote option.
• Archiving:  Some of your data does not need to be kept at arm’s length, but still cannot be destroyed.  Archiving is the long-term storage of data, typically in order to meet legal, tax, or other compliance mandates.