vendors often claim that their tools can provide a specific ratio of data reduction. Actual data de-duplication ratios can vary widely from customer to customer, of course, but Richerson says he was "floored" by the ratio his deployment achieved. "We see a de-dupe of 8-to-1, or basically 24TB of data is de-duped down to 3TB," he says.

Virtual Efficiency

At the , virtualization promises to help businesses archive data with unprecedented efficiency. Greg Thompson, director of IT at Northeast Bank, is relying on the EqualLogic PS5000 Series virtualized storage-area network from Dell Inc. to store corporate data. The systems are based on a virtualized modular storage architecture that enables Lewiston, Maine-based Northeast to purchase storage as it is needed, preventing overprovisioning.

For Thompson, the new technology marked a welcome departure from local server-based storage. "Local storage on servers gets unruly," he says. "When you run out of space, what do you do, buy another server? So we decided central storage was the answer for us."

Thompson says he opted to tie central storage together with virtualization for server and storage consolidation. "The whole process has worked really well for us," he says, noting that storage can now be scaled easily and efficiently whenever the need arises.