Many of our customers know very well that they are only actively using 10 to 30 percent at most of their data. Or counted another way: 70 to 90 percent of the data is secondary data that is almost never touched. Think of backup data, archive data, old documents, PDFs: it’s all on the servers and taking up space. Still, it often needs to be preserved. The fact is also familiar from the analog world: almost every desk has a stack of paper with the idea “that someday needs to be sorted out. So far, nothing new under the sun.

Everything on the primary storage

Case in point, however, is that this data often resides on expensive, primary storage. That implies that they are regularly backed up, and that also costs money. Therefore, from the point of view of space as well as cost, it would be wise to clean up this data anyway. Yes, it’s a big job. Fortunately, there is software that can assess, based on certain criteria, whether a file can be stored somewhere else and arrange to do so. We call this Hierarchical Storage Management.

How does it work?

For example, this software looks at what dates are used daily. This data is and will simply remain on primary storage because it needs to be available quickly. Then there are dates that may not have been touched for several months. These can be on a cheaper, slightly slower storage. And then there are data that haven’t been touched for, say, a year; they can go straight to the archive storage. This storage does that automatically based on the settings it works with. The user himself usually does not notice this at all.

Cost savings!

Belgian company Nodeum can provide such software, helping companies and organizations keep their expensive, primary storage fast and available. It is like cleaning up unstructured data. And it saves money, and make no mistake: that can add up quite a bit, which is why this investment is well worth it. Needless to say, Silent Bricks are great for storing the various data.

Want to know more? Feel free to inquire about the options we can offer! We are happy to tell you all about it.