What’s the future of data storage in 2016?

An IT industry analyst article published by SearchStorage.

It’s hard to make stunning predictions on the future of data storage that are certain to come true, but it’s that time of year and I’m going to step out on that limb again. I’ll review my predictions from last year as I go — after all, how much can you trust me if I’m not on target year after year? (Yikes!)

Last year, I said the total data storage market would stay flat despite big growth in unstructured data. I’d have to say that seems to be true, if not actually dropping. Despite lots of new entrants in the market, the average vendor margin in storage is narrowing with software-defined variants showing up everywhere, open-source alternatives nibbling at the edges, commodity-based appliances becoming the rule, and ever-cheaper “usable” flash products improving performance and density at the same time.

…(read the complete as-published article there)