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2023 Data Storage Trends to Watch

By Steve Santamaria, CEO, Folio Photonics

Data is the lifeblood of virtually every organization, from supporting decision-making, strategies, and discoveries, to finding solutions to problems and improving people's lives. As we look to what's in store for 2023 and beyond, C-suite executives and IT professionals must be prepared to address key data storage trends at the forefront in managing their storage resources that revolve around three areas: storage capacity, sustainability, and pricing.

New storage media, technologies, and business models are emerging to provide increased storage capacity while driving down costs. And, with global data centers using up to 3% of all worldwide electricity over the last decade and the world's growing focus on sustainability and ESG mandates, organizations are more incented than ever to find long-term solutions that reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions.

Here are 3 top data storage trends to watch in 2023:

1)     Hardware-as-a-Service Models will Reenergize a Fatigued Storage Industry. 

More vendors will begin to test hardware-as-a-service, pay-per-use models. The storage industry has experienced the effects that traditional hardware sales models create, with supply chain issues causing falling revenues and decreased unit shipments. Consequently, the storage industry screams out for a change in how storage hardware is bought and sold. As a result, more and more vendors will begin to test hardware-as-a-service, pay-per-use models to achieve lower upfront capital expenditures from end-users and more predictable revenues year over year in the long run.

2)     Cold Storage Steals the Spotlight. 

High-performance, costly storage has long held the media's attention, but the endless push by large customers to $0/TB has increased the momentum toward the cold storage segment. Every day, applications are being developed that ingest, utilize, and create massive amounts of data with no end to their advancements. Consequently, there will be overwhelming interest in developing new cold storage strategies to keep data lakes cost-efficient, energy-efficient, and secure for long periods. The storage industry has already seen an effort to push the boundaries of high-capacity HDDs, optical storage, and tape technologies. This research will continue in labs worldwide, presenting a growing challenge to keep cold storage accessible and cost-efficient. This new paradigm will create an influx of investment in current storage technologies paired with additional investment in new technologies (such as optical storage, DNA, etc.) that have the potential to disrupt this emerging industry.

3)     Out of Necessity, Data Storage Grows a Green Thumb

As nations around the globe strive toward Net Zero, other industries will come under increased scrutiny. This trend will significantly influence the data storage industry in particular. For 2025, projections show data centers will consume >3% of the world's electricity, and data storage is estimated to make up anywhere from 10-30% of a data center's overall energy consumption. People notice when an industry accounts for >1% of global electricity consumption. As a result, the pressure will increase for actions that will lessen the upcoming power burden. The EMEA region has taken a leadership position in the category and has explored several innovative ways to lower its data center power consumption. EMEA's forward-thinking example will create an industry-wide push toward sustainable storage technologies that are more energy-efficient than legacy hardware.

While these trends are likely to have significant momentum, we also expect to see the continued degradation of existing storage media $/TB and capacity CAGRs. Organizations will choose to store more data as they recognize the strategic impact of data assets on their profitability and productivity, both directly and indirectly. These factors create looming issues with existing storage budgets that organizational leadership must address. As the pace of innovation accelerates to meet these looming challenges, the fragile dynamics of the industry will come under fire to an even greater extent in the upcoming years, and the threat of vertical market failure will continue to rise. Expect an interesting and exciting 2023 and beyond for the data storage industry!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Folio Photonics, CEO, Steve Santamaria