Victor Koshka, South Pacific regional manager for BakBone Software, says that volume is the biggest danger facing enterprises. "Some day it's going to implode somewhere. We're just chasing our tails."

Take Mark Adams's dilemma, for example. Adams is network and systems administrator for Film Australia, the government-owned organization that has been producing documentaries and educational programs since World War II. Film Australia has a program to digitize all of its old stills and films, a project that should take about 12 to 18 months to complete. Film Australia's library has 150,000 images and 5000 films, covering a century of Australian history, so digitizing this is a massive undertaking, but Adams says it is nothing compared to the day-to-day data issues he faces.

"It used to take us 24 hours to do a backup. The old tapes were not big enough." He recently installed a new tape backup system (LTO3), which allows him to cut the backup period down to a more manageable five to six hours.

He uses tape for long-term storage, and disk for short- and medium-term (the biggest holds 3TB), and down the line is looking at disk-to-disk backup, as well as disk-to-disk-to-tape. He now has faster backup and larger capacity, he says, adding that "It's not bad that disk prices are coming down".

Richard Giddey, A/NZ country manager for Exabyte, thinks storing corporate data is manageable, but "storing personal data on company systems is out of control . . . and probably wrong anyway". Which means that whether you go for disk or tape (D2T), D2D or D2D2T, the real element in enterprise backups that is of concern to many is the human one.