We're swimming in data - how can we cope?

Computer technology is supposed to make our lives better, many believe. Yet as prices for storage drop, and we have more disk space available to us, the amount of data we create is growing rapidly - and because we depend so dearly on that data, managing it becomes a harder and harder task.

So goes the thinking of a recent white paper commissioned by data storage company StorageTek.

Also revealed in the research are some impressive estimates of just how much data computer users create.

The report estimates, for instance, that the number of emails sent daily in 2005 will reach 35 million. By 2007, each of those messages and attachments will be 650KB.

Spam is part of the problem, as it will account for 62 per cent of all those emails sent - and has an annual growth rate of around 350 per cent.

This rise in data takes place as disk capacity grows 60 per cent on average each year.

Managing our stored data becomes particularly complex because we are saving our emails and other bits of information longer each year, according to the white paper, and need to be able to access them no matter where it is stored.