Dropbox, despite rampant completion from big names like Google, has over 14 million subscribers to its data storage solutions. When people think of cloud storage, many think of Dropbox.
Add to that number the nearly infinite amount of people that are subscribed to other data tools provided by Microsoft, Adobe, and others, and it’s clear that data is big business.
Given how much people can’t get enough of data storage, it stands to reason that several of today’s biggest companies are making even bigger investments in improving the technology. But where is that money going? What’s going to be the next major development in the world of big data?
If you’re asking yourself those questions, keep reading. Below, our team breaks down key corporate and consumer trends you may very well see coming to fruition in the immediate future.
1. Companies Are Doubling Down on Flash Servers
Traditionally, having data storage technology and selling subscriptions to it meant taking in multiple customer’s data and storing it on servers that use HDDs. HDDs are your standard, disk-based hard drives. They’re cheap and offer ample storage.
The problem is that HDDs are exceptionally slow. This is why many server hosts have started offering data storage solutions that use SSD tech (solid-state drive), which can be 20x+ faster.
Getting your data hosted on SSD servers sets consumers back more cash. Many, however, are willing to invest.
2. Cloud Querying Continues to Advance
You have a bunch of data on a server. What actionable insights can you pull from that data though?
For example, say you have multiple documents on a server that outlines population sizes in different communities. Imagine if, from your data storage solution, you could run a report that could scan all of your files and illustrate your population numbers in an easy-to-read graph.
That process would be accomplished via querying technology, and it’s something that data storage technologies are working on improving. Amazon’s AWS S3 leads the charge on that front with others following close behind.
3. Automatic Smart Syncing via AI Will Take a Greater Role
Your team has all of their computer data saved in the cloud. That’s great, except for when they need to work with that data on their local machines.
We’re seeing that data solutions are leveraging AI to automatically assess what each of your team members will want to work on locally on a given day. With that assessment finished, AI can automatically download copies of files to local machines for the day’s work and sync edits back up to the cloud when people clock out.
That eliminates the need for employees to sync large files down at the beginning of the day, wasting precious time.
4. Investments Are Being Made in Data Transfer Rates
Using SSD data servers makes accessing data fast. But what about the technology that transports that data from servers to your computer?
Sure, internet speeds have an impact on this, but in addition to that, data solutions are increasingly able to intelligently select which bits of data to send to your machine first, second, third, etc. That can have a huge impact on the consumer experience!
Advance theory when it comes to data prioritization and how it affects transfers is still in its infancy. Expect more discussion and marketing to take place around this protocol.
5. Companies Are Buying Into Multiple Clouds
As a consumer, you’d probably choose a single cloud application and use it to sync all of your family’s data. For businesses, however, keeping data safe is imperative not only to operations but to legal obligations.
Because of that, several businesses are contracting multiple data vendors to create copies of their information in multiple places. This helps organizations hedge their bets should some sort of catastrophic occurrence take place that jeopardizes their data with one of their vendors.
You can learn more about colocation, which is the term that embodies the concept of spreading data, to understand this better.
6. More Cloud Data Means More Internet Speed
It used to be that businesses and consumers could get by with a 30mbps internet connection. Today, with more data being streamed down from off-site servers, people are having to invest in internet connections that boast 100mbps+.
With the mainstreaming of 4k and 8k video, expect that internet speed investment will keep heightening.
7. Software Integrations Are on the Rise
When you engage your current data storage solutions, in many cases, you’re having to manually back up your files. After all, while “automatic backups” are becoming more mainstream, they’re far from comprehensive.
As a solution, many software providers that don’t offer propriety backup tools are including data storage integrations natively. For example, you might be working on a document in OpenOffice and find that when you go to save, the program offers to automatically save your document to your Dropbox account.
Expect to see more integrations like this pop up across several pieces of your most-used software.
As an aside, even software providers that sell proprietary backup solutions are allowing consumers (in some cases) to backup to competitor data centers at the click of a button.
Data Storage Innovations Are Outpacing Our Ability to Write
Data storage is big business! That big business has driven innovations that are being developed at speeds that outpace many data storage industry news writer’s abilities to keep up.
If you’re interested in data storage and its future, keep learning about it by playing around with local and cloud-based servers yourself! You can keep experiencing these solutions from a theory standpoint by exploring more content on our blog.
