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An average company in the UK has more than a third of its total storage lying unused, claims the study. According to figures from IDC, the global market for disk storage systems in 2006 was worth $24.4 billion (£12.2 billion). Hostway, the web hosting company that sponsored the survey, said that UK businesses could be wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds on storage capacity they aren't using.

"The current model of storage procurement is fundamentally

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flawed," claims Neil Barton, director at Hostway. "Purchasing storage which you don't need is like hiring two people for one job, one of whom falls asleep at their desk and occasionally makes tea. Not only is it unnecessary, it also means that the IT team cannot use their budget as effectively as they would like."

Barton said that if an important project comes up later in the year, which requires IT support, business agility can "actually be reduced because funds have been absorbed by purchasing the excess storage."

Barton says that companies needed to start looking for more flexible storage methods. "Quite rightly people do not want to pay for capacity they don't need, however until recently they have been forced to as there have not been many viable alternatives. However, with the cost of WAN bandwidth dropping, it is now possible to effectively pay-on-demand for storage," he said.

With a more intelligent approach to the purchasing and usage of storage, IT managers could "take away many of the management headaches while at the same time ensuring you are always able to provide the storage performance the business needs cost effectively," according to Barton.