Feature

Time for a checkup?

Christo Conidaris, Vice President of Sales, EMEA, Curvature, discusses how a timely 'health check' appraisal can extend the life of storage systems

Research

Consumers 'don't know, don't care' about storage

A new survey reveals data location apathy, uncertainty about storage capacity and a 'willingness to delete information' among UK consumers

Comment

Welcome to the November edition of the Storage magazine eNewsletter, which includes research from SUSE which could make worrying reading for the industry. Their survey suggested that more than two-thirds of consumers don’t know how much data storage they have in the cloud or on mobile devices. In addition to a lack of awareness around storage capacity, it is perhaps more worrying that many consumers are apparently not interested in the finer details of exactly where their data is stored. More than a quarter (30 per cent) are indifferent on the topic of where their files are stored - with a further 14 per cent confirming they do not care.

"This 'don't know, don't care' attitude to data storage amongst consumers signals a wider trend to our always-on economy," commented Matt Eckersall of SUSE. "Consumers expect their storage to be scalable, flexible, cost effective and secure - and the enterprise is no different."

In an ideal world of ultra-commoditised cloud storage, such attitudes might be acceptable, but we all know that isn’t where we are just yet - so is it a good thing or a bad thing if enterprises become indifferent to where their data is stored? Only time will tell.

David Tyler, Editor david.tyler@btc.co.uk