When you need your data, you need it to remain the same way you stored it. The cost of bad data is much larger than just the cost of storage.

You are storing more data than ever before, and over longer periods of time. You rely on these files in the day-to-day of your business, and preserve it for years. Storing that data is dependent on making multiple copies, and storing it in multiple places for long periods of time. This is known as Information Life Cycle Management (ILM), and whether you’re technical or not, you are using ILM daily — even if you don’t realize it.

Keeping copies up to date and replacing systems as they age and verifying all of it requires even more copies. In this continuous copy making process, small errors are made when hardware or software fails, or network operations create glitches. Even simple background radiation and vibrations can cause these errors.

Over time these small errors in copy operations can add up to major problems, increasing as data retention grows into 5, 10 and 20 year periods. These series of errors are known as silent corruption, and over time, they can make your data unrecognizable, and more importantly, unusable. This can be a disaster in the making.