Data storage in 2009

Storage has always been a major issue for businesses. At least for the businesses I've worked for, anyway. In the '70s, I worked at a big company that had a huge area with rows and rows of paper file stacks (no digital data back then), and then an off-site warehouse with even more boxes of old paper files. It took days to find anything. In the '80s, I worked for a small company where almost all of the important papers were stored in a pile on the President's desk. In the early '90s, I worked for a company that had a huge room with rows and rows of tape storage, and again, an off-site warehouse with more data tapes. I haven't worked for anybody since the '90s, but today, my own storage is similarly disorganized.

Data storage is and always will be a necessity, no matter how the economy may falter. We may face slumping sales, recession, and aggressive competition, but we still need a place to store our stuff. And the fact is, as we rely more on technology--and as legislation mandates archiving and secure storage--we will continue to have more stuff to store. The folks who sell digital storage solutions are somewhat recession-proof, and CRN is issuing ten predictions for the storage industry for the coming year. Top on the list is, "storage won't falter", and midrange storage solutions will have the greatest traction in the market. VARs offering storage solutions are "cautiously optimistic," which is about as optimistic as anybody can be in this economy. This is going to be one of the segments that will survive the recession, and will continue to thrive regardless of drops in other areas of IT. We should also look for more virtual storage and storage-as-a-service.

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