The IOUG's survey, which was conducted by Chatham, N.J.-based Unisphere Research with funding from Symantec Corp., found that 31 percent of the respondents now manage data'bases larger than 1TB. That was up from 13 percent in a similar survey released early last year.

Respondents reported that the top contributors to their growing storage needs were increased transaction data, information generated by new devices and systems, and regulatory requirements. The growth was also fueled by increasing amounts of unstructured data, such as graphics, video and e-mail files.

'Storage is growing much faster than the revenues and profits of companies,' said Ari Kaplan, the Chicago-based IOUG's president and a senior consultant at Datalink Corp., a storage architecture services firm in Chanhassen, Minn.

According to the survey, some Oracle users are seeing such rapid data growth that when budgeting for storage needs, they often make their best guesses and then tack on 10 percent to 25 percent as a safety margin.

Kaplan said the situation is making some database administrators nervous enough that they're trying to become more involved in storage management decisions traditionally handled by other IT team members. That is causing conflicts, he noted.