Big Data analytics requirements have forced a huge shift in data storage paradigms, from traditional block- and file-based storage networks to more scalable models like object storage, scale-out NAS and data lakes.

Big Data is an all-encompassing term that refers to large and complex sets of unstructured, semi-structured, and structured data that cannot be processed by traditional data-processing software. These datasets are generated from numerous resources, such as large-scale e-commerce, medical records, image and video archives, and purchase transaction records.

Big Data analysis may reveal associations, trends, and patterns, especially relating to human interactions and behavior. Numerous specially-designed hardware and software tools are available today for Big Data analysis.

The extraction of meaningful insights from Big Data may aid in making critical business growth decisions, such as exploring new, underexplored market themes or the betterment of an existing product or service. Hence, much information technology (IT) investment is going towards maintaining and managing Big Data.

In fact, the Big Data industry is projected to be worth a hefty $77 billion by 2023. To make sense of Big Data, though, the first step is acquiring a Big Data storage tool.

Also read: Best Big Data Tools & Software for Analytics

More than 150 zettabytes of data will require analysis by 2025. An organization can only harness the power of Big Data if they have a secure storage solution that can massively scale to meet the Big Data challenge. Big Data storage tools collect and manage Big Data and enable real-time data analysis.

Generally, Big Data storage architecture falls into the following categories:

Also read: Best Data Warehouse Software & Tools

Here, in our analysis and review, are the best Big Data storage tools that are on the market today.

Apache Hadoop is an open-source software library that enables the distributed processing of large and complex datasets across clusters of computers (called nodes) using easy programming models. The framework is designed to scale to thousands of nodes, each offering local computation and storage.

Pricing: Apache Hadoop is available for free.

Apache HBase is an open-source, distributed, versioned, NoSQL database that is modeled after Google’s Bigtable. It provides capabilities similar to Bigtable on top of Apache Hadoop and HDFS.

Pricing: Apache HBase is available for free.

NetApp is a pioneer in the NAS industry. NetApp Scale-out NAS simplifies data management and helps you keep pace with growth while keeping costs down. The Big Data tool hands you seamless scalability, proven efficiency, and non-disruptive operations within a unified architecture.

Pricing: Reach out to sales for product pricing.

Snowflake’s cross-cloud platform provides quick, reliable, and secure access to all your data. Snowflake for Data Lake Analytics combines unstructured, semi-structured, and structured data of any format; provides rapid and reliable processing and querying; and enables secure collaboration.

Here is how Snowflake for Data Lake Analytics enables your data lake:

Pricing: A 30-day free trial includes $400 worth of free usage. Reach out to the Snowflake sales team for product pricing information.

Also read: 8 Top Data Startups

Databricks Lakehouse Platform combines the best of data lakes and data warehouses. The Big Data storage tool delivers the performance, strong governance, and reliability of data warehouses as well as the machine learning (ML) support, flexibility, and openness of data lakes.

Pricing: Fill out a simple form to enjoy a 14-day full trial. Contact the Databricks sales team for product pricing details.

The Big Data industry is ever-growing and powers numerous business-oriented applications. Tech giants such as Google and Facebook, for example, harness the potential of Big Data to serve targeted advertising and content to users. The first step to analyzing Big Data is securely storing it.We’ve covered some of the biggest solutions in this article, but others are also worth a look. Object storage is something every serious enterprise should be familiar with by now, and it’s also available in the cloud as a service from Amazon, Google, IBM and others. Do your own research and find a Big Data storage solution that best meets the needs of your organization.

Read next: Enterprise Storage Trends to Watch in 2022

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