The Ideal User Data Storage Interface

When users access data sets via their storage devices they should be presented with an easy-to-understand view of the file’s most crucial characteristics. This is especially important for storage media with distinctive characteristics, like molecular storage media or upcoming novel media still in development. The ideal user interface would allow the user to visualize these properties with many different visual tools and then display them in order of importance to the user.

When using a hard disk drive for instance, users typically find the capacity property to be among the most critical. Early systems included tools that reported precise information about a user’s storage device. However they primarily focused on showing the capacity of the device with bar charts stacked in their variants (e.g., doughnut charts).

Modern systems present the user with a variety of properties, including the capacity of the file. For example some systems display the life span of the file in the form of a graph or pie chart that also lists the number of segments that are accessed in the storage device, and supplemental information such as life expectancy is displayed when the user hovers over stacks.

The challenge is that IT teams must now collaborate with departments and end-users to facilitate more cost-efficient storage and faster and more secure access to the appropriate data sets to support new initiatives and ideas. This change in IT requires IT departments to concentrate less on the acquisition of technology configuration, budget and management and more on empowering users to self-serve their needs.

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