New storage technology may well be faster, more reliable for data protection, simpler to manage and more flexible, but companies on tight budgets aren’t moving their precious data off their old methods—at least for now.

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That’s the conclusion of a report from Enterprise Strategy Group, a Milford, Mass., consultancy. According to the January report, titled "ESG Research: Data Protection Market Trends," 41 percent of companies with 100 employees and 43 percent of companies with 100 to 1,000 employees still use NAS (network-attached storage), while 25 percent of companies with less than 100 employees use SANs (storage area networks), versus 51 percent of companies with 100 to 1,000 employees.

What’s more, 36 percent of smaller companies are still backing data up directly to tape, with 42 percent backing up to a mix of disk and tape, while 39 percent of midmarket companies (100-1,000 employees) back up directly to tape and 42 percent back up to a mix of disk and tape.