IT executives expect the volume of data they have under management to grow by 30% over the next two years, even though IT budgets are only likely to rise by 10% during the same period.

According to the Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) Storage Index, which canvasses the views of over 840 senior IT executives in the EMEA region, messaging will be the single biggest contributor to this data explosion, with 76% of respondents pointing to email as the source of the growth.

Despite an appreciation of greater storage requirements, many CIOs and IT directors were uncertain about how much they spend on storage as a percentage of their IT budgets. In fact 15% more executives than in last year's survey could not put a figure on that proportion.

Distinctions between traditional storage spending on raw capacity and expenditure on advanced storage management technologies are becoming blurred. However, over the next two years 49% of respondents expect to implement storage management technologies.

The vast majority – 93% – of those surveyed admitted to being concerned about at least one facet of their storage strategy. Security (31%), downtime (28%) and budgets (14%) were seen as their main challenges.

Commenting on the findings, Michael Väth, senior VP and general manager at HDS said: "The data burden is increasing yet budgets are virtually static. Purchasing decisions are being made on how storage can contribute to the overall business rather than simply how much capacity is needed, and the market needs to react to this by focusing on business solutions rather than simply shifting boxes."