Check, it’s all in there

With the explosive growth in the amount of data, network storage gains increased attention

This explosive growth in the amount of data is reflected in an increased IT spending around the world, making network storage one of the most important considerations in the corporate arena.

Riaz Abdullah, Regional Sales and Marketing Manager, Imation Middle East, says, "The data storage market is a key consideration when building any IT platform be it within the business or home environment.

"The need for data storage is growing rapidly. With spiralling figures, it is a matter of some urgency to make high-capacity digital storage media available, not just because of the rising numbers of digital end-user devices, but due to the shortening of market penetration time of new technologies."

Interestingly enough, a survey by Morgan Stanley Technology Research shows new technologies find broad public acceptance in ever-shorter periods of time.

Thirty-eight years went by before radio finally broke through, even TV took 13 years to gain 50 million viewers in the US, but internet has found 50 million users in just five years.

However, improper environmental conditions, insufficient transportation and storage preparation, and poor tape handling and storage can all result in data loss.

With the capacity of a single cartridge now exceeding 200GB and approaching a terabyte in the near future, appropriate handling is more important than ever.

The growth of digital data puts additional pressure on backup and archiving systems. The sheer volume of data can put valuable data at risk.

"A successful storage backup programme involves more than just saving information on removable data storage media, (tape or optical discs), and placing it in storage.

"It requires regular evaluation and testing to ensure it is working properly and the data stored can be retrieved if necessary. To do this, the company needs to periodically restore some folders and files from backup media to validate the backup process," says Abdullah.

A 2004 survey of more than 200 IT directors and network storage managers of small to mid-sized businesses, sponsored by Imation Corp, a worldwide leader in removable data storage media, found only one of three (32 per cent) companies perform regularly scheduled testing and evaluation of its storage backup systems at least quarterly and another 35 per cent do so only once a year or less.

The testing and evaluation process of a backup system should take no more than 30 minutes to perform.

If one's business cannot risk data loss (which no business can afford to do so), one may want to perform a restore job once a week or once a month, depending on the needs.

At a minimum, testing should be done at least once a quarter.