storage survey – NDSA Blog

2023 NDSA Storage Survey Report Published

The NDSA is pleased to announce the release of the 2023 Storage Infrastructure Survey Report, available at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/9QP4W

From October 24 to November 22, 2023, the 2023 NDSA Storage Infrastructure Survey Working Group conducted a 51-question survey designed to gather information on the technologies and practices used in preservation storage infrastructure.

This effort builds upon three previous surveys, conducted in 2011, 2013, and 2019. The survey encouraged responses from NDSA and non-DSA members to gain a broader understanding of storage practices within the digital preservation community. The survey received 138 complete responses, with most coming from the United States, but it did have a global reach. The 2023 survey also incorporated two new questions on storage and environmental impact.

Some major takeaways from the report include:

The amount of preservation storage required for all managed copies appeared to stabilize relative to previous surveys. Fewer organizations reported higher allocations of storage, but the anticipated need for storage over the next three years remains elevated.
Only 28% of respondents currently participate in a cooperative system – down from 45% in 2019 – and 63% indicate they are not considering a distributed storage cooperative. The use of commercial cloud storage providers rose from 46% in 2019 to 55% in 2023.
Heavy use of an onsite storage element was reported by academic institutions (91%), archives (88%), and government agencies (71%). It also shows that use of onsite storage is most often combined with use of either independently managed offsite storage or commercial cloud storage managed by the organization.
The leading offsite storage provider used by 56% of the responding academic institutions is Amazon Web Services. For responding archives, Amazon Web Services (36%) and Preservica (21%) are the most prevalent. Non-profits, museums, historical societies and public libraries use Amazon Web Services 45% of the time.
52% of respondents said their organization is considering their environmental impact during storage planning.

The proposed schedule for the Storage Infrastructure Survey to be conducted is every three years, allowing for ongoing tracking and analysis of approaches to preservation storage over time. The next planned Storage Infrastructure goup is scheduled to kick off in 2026. Interested in participating in the next Storage Infrastructure Working group? A call for group members will go out in late 2025 or early 2026.

~ NDSA 2023 Storage Infrastructure Survey Working Group

It’s here, the 2023 NDSA Preservation Storage Infrastructure Survey!

Do you manage and preserve content? If so, we’d like to know about your preservation storage infrastructure! The NDSA Preservation Storage Infrastructure Working Group is back again, with our latest iteration of the NSDA Preservation Storage Infrastructure survey. Please contribute to our longitudinal research designed to gain insight into how organizations worldwide use preservation storage to ensure long-term access to their digital content and to learn how real-world capacity and best practices differ.

The survey will remain open until November 22, 2023 and should take approximately 30 minutes to complete. We will make our best effort to protect your individual responses so that no one will be able to connect your responses with you or your organization. Any personal information that could identify you or your organization will be removed or changed before survey results are made public. We will combine your responses along with the responses of others and make the aggregated results public in mid-2024. To assist with completing the survey all of the survey questions can be viewed in advance.

The results of our previous studies are provided here for your perusal: 2011, 2013, 2019.

Please do not hesitate to reach out to the survey Co-chairs, Amy Allen (ala005 [at] uark [dot] edu) and Sibyl Schaefer (sschaefer [at] ucsd [dot] edu) with any questions you have about the survey.

Thank you for your participation, and thank you for helping NDSA and our community define and advance digital preservation!

~ The NDSA Storage Infrastructure Survey Working Group

Request for Participation in the next Storage Survey Working Group

The latest iteration of the NDSA Storage Survey Working Group is starting up soon. This longitudinal survey has been run three times, with the last survey published in 2019. If you are interested in participating in this group please read the scope of work and complete this form by July 21, 2023.

It is expected that work for the survey will start in August 2023 and end about 6-10 months later, with the group meeting about twice monthly. Work would also be done between meetings to review the survey questions and results, and to write a final report. We especially welcome participation from international NDSA members and members who have not previously participated in NDSA groups.

By volunteering, Working Group members agree to follow the NDSA Code of Conduct.

Survey Scope of Work:

Review past surveys, possible redesign for this iteration
Develop 2023 survey
Survey deployment
Data analysis and research
Writing final report

If you have questions, please contact:

Sibyl Schaefer, sschaefer@ucsd.edu

Please complete this form by July 21, 2023 to indicate your interest in participating.

Call for Co-chairs for 2023 Storage Survey

NDSA is seeking two volunteers from NDSA member organizations to serve as co-chairs for the next iteration of the Storage Survey. Volunteers should be knowledgeable about, and interested in, digital preservation storage and comfortable with co-leading a group to produce and administer a survey, analyze data, and write and publish a report. Prior experience chairing an NDSA group is not necessary, and NDSA Leadership will provide guidelines for the co-chairs.

Responsibilities include:

Scheduling and leading meetings
Organizing and completing work
Setting deadlines and tracking progress
Attending monthly NDSA Leadership meetings and communicating with Leadership about Working Group progress

The time commitment will vary based on the number of group members and scope of work.

If you’re interested, please fill out this form by February 15, 2023.