TheInfoPro conducts an annual Technology Heat Index Survey, asking hundreds of IT professionals dozens of questions about their technology plans. The most recent survey was conducted between August 2011 and this past April.

Not surprisingly, survey respondents again chose server virtualization as the leading driver of capacity growth, and Fibre Channel SANs were the predominant targets of enterprise data storage. Sixty-seven percent of respondents indicated they have between 80% and 100% of production servers connected to a Fibre Channel SAN.

Drivers of capacity growth

Fibre Channel hard drives, however, took a big hit in the last year, as SAS, solid-state drives (SSDs) and SATA drives for the first time became dominant in enterprise use.

Asked what new disk storage purchases they made in 2011, 48% said Fibre Channel drives, 31% indicated SATA drives, 19% SAS and 2% SSD drives. But, when asked about what drives would make up the greatest capacity growth in their enterprise this year, 41% indicated SAS; 35%, SSD; 23%, SATA; and 11% stated Fibre Channel.