Size Isn't Everything

A message board post referring to this weeks NASA story raised some interesting questions about how we peg "massive" storage projects.

The poster basically questions whether one of the projects mentioned in the story, a 12-Tbyte system for storing atmospheric data, can be lumped in with NASA’s rapidly growing multi-Pbyte SAN infrastructure.

This is a valid point, particularly if size is the only criterion being used, although it's not always possible to quantify a "major project" in terms of Tbytes.

Consider, for example, the fact that 12 Tbytes worth of image data is fairly easy to accumulate, whereas half that amount of database information is considered a lot. This difference is even more pronounced when it comes to email; as one analyst recently told Byte and Switch: "3 Tbytes of Exchange data would be considered large.”

Something else to consider is the fact that data set sizes vary significantly according to industry.Fifty Tbytes of geophysics data may be considered commmonplace in the oil and gas industry, but a similar amount of information may be dubbed "massive" in the manufacturing sector.

Clearly, when it comes to storage, size isn’t everything. It’s what you do with it that’s important.