'Storage costs are being squeezed'

The costs associated with data storage have never been under so much pressure as they are now, it has been claimed.

According to Infostor, even during the ongoing economic downturn, data storage growth is accelerating and companies have to make sure they keep their costs down in the area.

The website notes that web hosting services such as cloud computing are starting to mature and are already using the latest virtualisation technologies, which can benefit from economies of scale and increased flexibility.

"While traditional storage technologies continue to excel in the areas they were designed to address—namely, transactional computing—such solutions fail to curb file-based data sprawl. These factors are driving users to consider new storage deployment models, such as cloud storage," the website notes.

Meanwhile, researchers in Sydney have created a new algorithm which they claim can reduce data centre energy consumption.

Researchers Young Choon Lee and Albert Zomaya developed the Energy Conscious Scheduling algorithm at the University of Sydney.

Written by Debra Hastings-Henry