Businesses are failing to think about the electricity
used up by their data storage systems, a survey carried out at
London’s 2006 Storage Expo by Hitachi Data Systems has
revealed.
Earlier this month, industry analyst Gartner warned that energy
costs could soar to more than half of overall IT budgets in the
next few years.
But the survey of 300 visitors found that while nearly half the
respondents were storing more than 10 terabytes of data, almost the
same number either did not consider or did not know the impact of
this on their organisation’s energy consumption
Most respondents estimated their company’s annual data growth at
between 20% and 40%, with four out of ten of those surveyed
planning a new storage project within the next three months.
Hitachi Data Systems UK sales director Andrew Wilson said,
“While customers are actively looking at storage more
strategically, our survey shows this strategic approach to storage
does not yet consider environmental policy or increasing energy
consumption as a factor.”
