Networks and storage: which is the chicken and which is the egg?

Source: guardian.co.uk

Networks drive storage growth.  The fatter the pipes, the bigger the content users can create and consume – from streamed HD movies to 240 TB of data moon imagery data.

No, storage drives network growth.  As Stacy at GigaOm points out, that 240 TB of data has incented Nirvanix to invest in gigabit per second network connections to its data centers.  Those HD movies were surely part of the business case for ‘last mile’ network investments by the major carriers.

Which is the chicken and which is the egg?  What do you think? 

What is clear is that the two technologies rely on each other to grow. Cisco/IBM/Sun/EMC and others are in the news these days largely due to how this inseparable tie will play out in the market.

The storage industry is fortunate to have ever faster and smarter networks around to push it forward. And network companies should be grateful for ever larger vats of storage that create a hunger that only they can satisfy.