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Baird & Warner

Self-managed Storage Units with Embedded Artificial Intelligence

While this article focuses on a single use case to avoid e-hoarding, the possibilities are beyond that. Today, storage is considered a “dumb” area. Still, it can be viewed as a “smart” area if we think about the different use cases Artificial Intelligence self-managed storage units can take us. Like many things, this idea must start somewhere, so I start with what I consider a simple use case.

Now that electronic storage has become more accessible, less expensive, with no signs of stopping, it would be good if “Artificial Intelligence” companies expand in this market in 2022 and help us. As responsible for IT, I witness e-hoarders take as much space as possible, not wanting to delete anything.
While best practices, like deleting emails older than two years, help reduce the e-hoarding, they usually use a single dimension like time, without considering many other factors such as relevancy, importance, privacy, and many more.

We treat storage as a “dumb” area, but what if it could be smart enough to archive, delete, recover, and (of course) protect what is stored? Today it is all-or-nothing access to the data or files.

For those colleagues still not buying into why it is essential to clean up, delete old emails, files, etc., despite the low cost of storage. Allow me to first illustrate with an analogy and then attempt to explain the importance. E-Hoarding is as bad as entering a house that has all the newspapers or pieces of mail ever received. Now into the importance, how many of you have an email or a pdf file containing sensitive information about somebody or yourself from 5 or 10 years ago? What if a bad actor accesses that file? For companies, the more information you have, the more problematic it is to protect. Any discoverable information you have and anything that shouldn’t get access to data from 5 or 10 years ago will haunt you.

Gone are the days when tapes were sent to secure storage (back in the day when storage was expensive) and restoring from backup was a multi-day exercise. The low cost of storage makes it harder to make a business case based only on storage cost. However, a business case could be based on risk and other costs.

I can see storage self-managing itself, making better decisions on where and how to store the data for better, faster, more secure access


I see Artificial Intelligence helping us (users and IT professionals) tagging when saving files and determining which files should be scheduled for deletion with specific parameters, etc. The same storage devices could take on these self-organizing/cleansing activities in a more distant futurist thinking.

In summary, and in a more futuristic approach, data storage should not be considered “dumb” I can see storage self-managing itself, making better decisions on where and how to store the data for better, faster, more secure access. Storage unit manufacturers could sell this technology and charge more for self-managed storage units. We could acquire value-added storage units that can help us regulate what we store and how we share it. I might be misinformed, but I have not seen anything like this anywhere. I hope this is the year I can finally hear storage manufacturing or other companies making this happening or starting to do some exposure to what they are doing.

The articles from these contributors are based on their personal expertise and viewpoints, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of their employers or affiliated organizations.