Planning for future storage requirements

[Chewy509]

Hi Guys,

Need a hand finding some references for how to determine what storage capacity to purchase based on current demands, so that it will last at least 3 years?

The old rule of thumb was, look at what you had 3 years ago, see how much more you are storing today, plot a linear trend and double it.

eg needed 250GB 3 years ago, need 500GB now, therefore should need 1TB in 3 years, but double it for safety, therefore 2TB in 3 years.

But does anyone have a reference to how to do this calculation or where is originated from? (Preferably from a storage vendor, eg Seagate, EMC, HP, IBM, etc).

Or is there some other calculation? Sorry my Google-Fu seems to be worn out recently, and keep coming up with crap IDC or Gartner reports which are useless.

PS. This is for my very last Uni Assignment. I've plotted the storage required for a cluster (2TB each node now, but am estimating it be 4TB per node now to account for future growth), but have no historical data to go off as it's a new system, therefore a plot line doesn't exist.

 

[Howell]

Oops I got a little off track there. The best you can do is to take your understanding of why the data grew and size you storage system accordingly. Making it modular will allow you to make corrections in the near future.

 

[Howell]

If you can estimate how much data a current project requires and how many projects you will take on in the future you can get close. If you can trend line that you may get a better number than otherwise.

 

[ddrueding]

You also need to take into account how much of your data is accumulated, and how much is fixed. My VM box has only doubled in storage requirements in 6 years, as those VMs are more-or-less just replaced and not added to. But the company data drives have increased 10x in the same time; now that everything is stored electronically (24"x36"@200dpi sheets, ~50 sheets per set, 5+ sets per day).

 

[Howell]

If you still need a book reference see the paragraph at the very bottom.
http://homepage.cs.uri.edu/faculty/wolfe/book/Readings/Reading05.htm

 

[Chewy509]

Thanks Howell, that's all I needed.

 

[Mercutio]

You also need to take into account how much of your data is accumulated, and how much is fixed. My VM box has only doubled in storage requirements in 6 years, as those VMs are more-or-less just replaced and not added to. But the company data drives have increased 10x in the same time; now that everything is stored electronically (24"x36"@200dpi sheets, ~50 sheets per set, 5+ sets per day).

One of my customers recently went from having an enterprise-wide need for perhaps ~10GB of storage to consuming 200GB more or less every weekend after they started taking HD video of live music performances in their restaurant/lounge/bar-things. I was awfully surprised when the drive on their server went from barely used to completely full. Now they have a small stack of 2TB external drives, a subscription to Crashplan and an intimate relationship with Sony Vegas. Smartphones and easy access of super-resolution photos and HD video certainly do have a mind-bending impact on what people want to store now.