The majority of European organisations admit to being ill-equipped to deal with the rising volume of data they are having to store, according to research from storage vendor Network Appliance.

A survey of 1,000 IT managers revealed only 35% believe they are fully prepared to tackle the possible loss of stored data. Of the rest, 5% admitted they were not prepared at all.

Across the board, European IT decision makers are being tested by the volumes of data being created within the enterprise: document flows and email traffic are the chief cause of increasing volumes of data being stored. More than half of the respondents reported that their requirements for storage capacity had risen more than 20% in the last year. The biggest rises were seen in organisations with more than 500 employees.

Regional differences are apparent in the choice of back-up and archiving technology. Overall, most companies still rely on a mixture of tape and disk for back-up, however, there is a growing trend for just using disk in both Spain and the Netherlands.

Addressing the problem of data storage is not always simple. Respondents in France, Germany and Italy, said the biggest challenge is keeping up with the latest developments in technology. Finding staff with the skills to manage the storage environment is also a concern: Over a quarter (26%) of UK companies polled reported difficulties in finding suitably qualified staff.