I've seen this challenge first hand at a large organization with many pressing regulatory and legal needs.  People do indeed tend to just do what they've always done -- if permitted.  It needed detailed instructions, mandatory compliance, and regular audits to change behavior.

Not all organizations may be under quite the same pressure as this one was, but unless you have a clear records retention policy, and enforce it, the indeed: important stuff will get thrown away, and rubbish will pile up.

An age old problem, what to store and what to throw away? I am guessing it may depend a whole lot on the personality. Those who have crowded garages and save every magazine, probably are going to be tempted to save every document, draft or finished. How to change embedded behavior may be more difficult that it seems in any effort to streamline data storage.

Exactly, @DavidS! You nailed the whole thing right there: It all comes down to management at the end of the day. Cloud can resolve -- or create -- a lot of problems.

Never mind final versions of documents. How many drafts must enterprises be storing? This is where a detailed, and enforced, document retention policy can help: "Only retain final drafts of documents" is a good rule, but hard to implement, especially in collaborative environments.

You want multiple copies of something so you're protected in case of a failure. On the other hand, as you say, it creates its own problems.

Currently I'm having that problem with my personal photos; I've made lots of backups and so on, so I have literally 8-10 copies of some of my pictures -- but not all of them. I'd really like a way to go through all my pictures and dedupe them. I've used dedupe programs but I'm afraid to push the button to delete the "spare" copies.

I see lots of SMB's moving towards cloud but without a real strategy in mind. They are using multiple cloud based technologies and just adding more complexity to thier systems. Box, evernote, dropbox google docs all in play togther in many organizations I am concerned that the single place to find data is getting more and more remote as a possiblity for the SMB market

I see lots of pros and cons with cloud storage in the business world.  

It can lead to more or less duplication - depending on how it is used and managed.

It can lead to more or less security - depending on how it is used and managed.

It can lead to more or less ease of use - depending on how it is used and managed.

How many corporate IT departments are able to effectively manage the cloud data. Google documents; dropbox and dozens of other services are springing up each day.  How many IT departments are keeping up with the spread and managing how things work?

You raise an interesting issue, Alison.  I believe we have a tendency to do things just because we can.  With the expansion of data storage, we have not matured to drawing the limits and seem to be viewing this as a luxury to be able to store everything.

The value will truly come from organizing and effectively using information.  The savings will come from effective storage tools that we select for different types of data, as you point out.  Then we will begin to recognize the ROI.

DHagar

I see cloud storage as part of both the problem and the solution: The problem in that, as you say Mitch, it's cheap and available everywhere, so to speak. The solution, in that it can replace employees' use of onsite storage for some data, improving security and reducing the mass of information that IT must deal with. 

Information "smog" and "sprawl" are great phrases. 

Cheap, cloud storage can significantly exacerbate information sprawl. Businesses need to get that information under control so they can actually put it to work.