You might want to read this helpful background article about Big Data, before making any decisions for your company. It might give you a useful overview that could help you later on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_data

"In information technology, big data[1][2] is a loosely-defined term used to describe data sets so large and complex that they become awkward to work with using on-hand database management tools. Difficulties include capture, storage,[3] search, sharing, analysis,[4] and visualization. The trend to larger data sets is due to the additional information derivable from analysis of a single large set of related data, as compared to separate smaller sets with the same total amount of data, allowing correlations to be found to "spot business trends, prevent diseases, combat crime."[5]

Though a moving target, as of 2008 limits were on the order of petabytes to zettabytes of data.[6] Scientists regularly encounter limitations due to large data sets in many areas, including meteorology, genomics,[7] connectomics, complex physics simulations,[8] and biological and environmental research,[9] The limitations also affect Internet search, finance and business informatics. Data sets grow in size in part because they are increasingly being gathered by ubiquitous information-sensing mobile devices, aerial sensory technologies (remote sensing), software logs, cameras, microphones, radio-frequency identification readers, and wireless sensor networks.[10][11] The world's technological per-capita capacity to store information has roughly doubled every 40 months since the 1980s[12]; as of 2012, every day 2.5 quintillion (2.5×1018) bytes of data were created.[13]"