Research from the London Chamber of Commerce revealed that 90 percent of businesses that lose data from a disaster are forced to shut down within two years.

With this in mind, more SMEs today are beginning to realize that the data they create and receive is crucial to the success of their business performance. They have also begun to realize that losing data could be the easy part while recovery is the hard thing to do.

This year, majority of SMEs are expected to purchase or upgrade storage technologies and solutions to comply with US and national state requirements which will take effect in Asia Pacific, such as Anti Money Laundering, Basel II, Freedom of Information Act, and various privacy laws.

'With compliance requirements in mind, local businesses should consider taking the issue of storage seriously and not just as a U.S. issue,' said Puni Rajah, IDC vice president for research in Asia Pacific.

While SMEs have been struggling with the same storage issues that larger enterprises face, it was only recently that stripped down versions of enterprise products were made available to the SME market.