Santa Barbara, California – March 1, 2006
A major shift occurred in 2005 in the competition that opposes tapes to disks. The number of sites using magnetic disks for part of their backup has doubled. For the first time ever, over one half of the surveyed managers consider the possibility of a tape-less IT operation in the long run.
In 2006, there will be more data backed up on disk than on tape, and disk should gain 4% share every year for the next three years. If disk can be made removable, disk could further extend its dominance. Sites using over 500 TB of disk capacity for virtual tape have tripled. SCSI disk drives are predominant but their share decreases in favor of ATA, SATA and FC drives.
Does this signal the end of tape? Not in the foreseeable future. Nearline tape capacity continues to be in great demand by large IT sites that anticipate annual increases of over 50% for the next two years. Off-line tape capacity will grow 33% in 2006. DLT tape is still the leading media, and sites with LTO have grown over 20%.
Tape has the greatest percentage of use for archiving today, about 60%, compared to 75% in the 2004 survey. Disk storage shows respectable current use for archiving as well as good anticipated growth. The usage of optical disks, mostly DVD, has more than doubled. Media capacity and archival retention are rated the most required archiving attributes. WORM capability is ranked high by the upper tier population.
This trend constitutes a serious warning to tape and tape library manufacturers. For larger operations, a combination of disk and tape is still the optimal solution today; how long this lasts depends on the ability of the tape manufacturers to respond to the users’ concerns and satisfy their new needs.
The survey addressed a random population of 15,000 sites. 2,000 reliable responses form the basis of preliminary findings covering storage configurations and objectives. For a selected population of over 130 IT professionals, this report provides statistics on tapes and magnetic and optical disks capacity and growth rates, ranks issues and needs, and analyzes the evolution of tape vs. disk for backup and archiving.
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Introduction
The survey targeted over one hundred IT managers having storage management or data protection responsibilities for IT operations that store a minimum of one terabyte (TB) of raw disk storage. Out of 15,000 managers contacted, over 2,000 qualified managers (Referred to as the "Screening Survey") answered the full screening survey of less than 10 questions. We selected over two hundred individuals representing sites relatively evenly distributed among the disk capacity ranges, with an attempt to include a sufficient number of representatives from each of nine targeted industries. We submitted them to the full survey of over 50 questions. We received 135 reliable responses. They are referred to as the "Full Survey" or "Selected population".
The Screening Survey population was questioned on their storage configuration as well as their acquisition plans. For the selected population of 135 sites, this survey provides statistics on practices related to Automated Tiered Storage and media used for different storage tiers The report ranks issues and needs, and analyzes trends and acquisition intents.
Nine industries were targeted in this report: Finance/banking, Health, Manufacturing, Retail Distribution, Government, Education, Consulting, Computers and IT, and Telecommunications. The survey reveals interesting peculiarities in each industry practices and requirements.
Objectives
The primary objective of this study is to verify and predict the dynamics of the market acceptance of Disk utilization in the Backup and Archiving process, analyze the IT manager motivation through an understanding of their requirements and complaints, and determine the media selection criteria for each application. The report also analyzes the site practices and maintenance policies in Backup and Archiving and the consequences of compliance to regulations.
Survey Methodology
To qualify for the survey, the respondent had to be an IT administrator or manager with storage related responsibilities and one terabyte of total disk capacity most of which connected to open systems.
· We developed a questionnaire in collaboration with a number of industry executives · We tested the questionnaire in interviews with industry experts and storage vendors · We asked several thousands IT managers a limited set of questions to determine if they qualified for the survey. Over 2000 completed these questions. · We selected about 200 of these screening survey respondents to complete the full survey. We targeted 70% of the population in the small and medium business category with the full survey respondents having mostly open systems and 3 or more NAS. · We sent a detailed questionnaire of over 60 questions to the selected respondents · We received over 130 good responses. We compiled and analyzed the results, and compared with results obtained in our 2003 and 2004 surveys · We also included comments resulting from the many contacts we have throughout the year with IT managers.
2006 Tapes versus Disks Report
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