Near the turn of the century, data centers were only beginning to implement Fibre Channel storage-area networks (SAN), with most relying on direct-attached storage (DAS). Data utilization rates were abysmal, with data centers on average using just 25% to 30% of their hard disk drive capacity.

Near the turn of the century, data centers were only beginning to implement Fibre Channel storage-area networks (SAN), with most relying on direct-attached storage (DAS). Data utilization rates were abysmal, with data centers on average using just 25% to 30% of their hard disk drive capacity.

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Despite Fibre Channel and IP SAN adoption and the advent of technologies such as thin provisioning, storage resource management, capacity reclamation and storage virtualization, storage utilization rates remain at 40% or lower. In other words, IT shops aren't using as much as 60% of their storage capacity, wasting electricity and floor space.

"Most people I talk to don't even know how many terabytes of capacity they have on the floor, much less what their utilization is. And a lot of them don't even know how they'd measure it if they could," said Andrew Reichman, an analyst at Forrester Research. (...)

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