When users access data sets on their storage devices it is important to present them with an easy-to-understand view of the most crucial properties. This is especially true for storage media that have unique features such as molecular storage media, as well as novel media that are still in development. The ideal user interface would allow users to see these properties using various visual methods, and ideally present them in order of importance to the user.
When using a hard disk drive, for example, users often consider the capacity property to be one of the most important. Early systems included tools that gave detailed information about the storage device. However, they focused on displaying its total capacity by using stacking bar graphs and their variants (e.g. doughnut charts).
With the advent of more modern technology, however the capacity of a file is usually only one of the attributes that are displayed to the user. For instance some systems display the file’s lifespan with an image or pie chart that also provides the number of segments accessed within the storage device and other information, such as life expectancy is displayed when the user hovers over stacks.
The challenge is that IT teams must now collaborate with departments as well as end-users to facilitate more cost-efficient storage and faster and secure access to the appropriate data sets to support new projects and ideas. This requires IT teams to concentrate less on technology procurement, configuration and spending management and more on empowering line of business users to support themselves with their own self-service needs.