CTERA Finds 95% of Enterprise File Data Rarely Used
Blocks & Files, Tuesday, September 15th, 2026
Cloud file system supplier CTERA reports that only 4.4% of enterprise file data is actively used.
Cloud file system supplier CTERA commissioned research analyzing 16 petabytes of live production data across 856 file-share scans, finding that 95.6% consists of redundant, obsolete, or trivial data serving no clear business purpose.
Key findings include 83.1% of stored capacity in files unmodified for over a year and only 9.9% of data accessed within any 90-day period. CTERA CTO Aron Brand noted that enterprises are running their most expensive storage tier as what is effectively a cold archive.
The company's new Edge Filer v7.13x includes an Archive function to move inactive data to cost-efficient cloud storage.