IDC Calculates the Total Cost of Managing the World's Installed Base of External Storage

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16 Mar 2009

FRAMINGHAM, Mass.,March 16, 2009– While the economic crisis and increased focus on efficientstorage has helped to decrease the worldwide power and cooling costs ofexternal storage long-term, other costs related to external storage (beyond theacquisition of the storage itself) continue to cost more than the storageitself. IDC estimates the total annual cost to "manage" the world'sinstalled base of external storage is about 60% of all enterprisestorage-related spending, including software, power, cooling, administrationpersonnel, and services.

"As the industry attempts to control IT costs,specifically related to storage, IDC realizes that power and cooling costs arenot the only costs associated with external storage," said David Reinsel,group vice president for IDCStorageandSemiconductorsresearch. "In fact, in the grand scheme of things, the cost to power andcool external storage pales in comparison with the cost to acquire and managestorage, including the costs for storage software and storage administrators."

In this light, IDC's study,

The Economic Meltdownand Its Chilling Effect on the Cost to Power, Cool, and Manage EnterpriseStorage

(Doc #217158), expands IDC's cost analysis to calculate thetotal cost of managing the world's installed base of external storage. Thestudy also updates IDC's enterprise storage power and cooling costs model inlight of the economic crisis, and the change in assumptions around the adoptionof more efficient storage technologies. IDC's assumption changes include thefollowing:

• Whileinterest around storage efficiency technologies (e.g., deduplication,compression, and thin provisioning) has intensified, impacting power andcooling costs in the longer term, penetration of these technologies is verylow.

• 2.5in.capacity-optimized HDDs have a much greater impact on power and cooling thanSSDs in this update. These drives were integrated in this model update.

• Higher-than-expectedcapacities from HDD manufacturers, as well as end-user adoption of thesecapacities, have had a tangible impact in this update, as well.

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Figure 1

Contact

For more information, contact:

David Reinsel

dreinsel@idc.com

320-587-1000

Anne-Sophie Dankens

adankens@idc.com

508-935-4313

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