Tiered Storage

One of the most important new, trends in storage is tiered storage, which attempts to match the cost of storage with the importance of the data stored on it. Tiered storage is similar to HSM, but without the necessity to migrate and demigrate data. Determined by data management policies, the most important data is located on high performance, first tier storage, while less important data is located on lower performing, high-capacity second tier storage. Finally data that is not needed on-line, such as backup or historical archived data might be located on third tier storage. Tiered storage is an area that will see significant development in the years to come.