Next-gen storage

It's a simple equation: As data storage needs grow, so do storage costs. In fact, even as prices continue to come down, storage equipment now accounts for 19 percent of the IT hardware budget, according to a report from Forrester Research. And that figure doesn't include costs such as energy and management.

"Disk might be cheap, but storing the increasingly high volumes of data that companies generate isn't. It's actually quite expensive," says Forrester analyst Andrew Reichman.

And as the costs for physical space and energy (for both powering up and cooling down the hardware) continue to rise, storage efficiency will become a higher priority. Here are four next-generation technologies that could help.