Glossary Term

File Analytics

What is file analytics?

The practice of examining how files are stored, accessed, and organized to find optimization and governance opportunities across storage environments.

File analytics gives organizations visibility into what’s actually living on their storage systems: how much space files consume, who owns them, when they were last touched, and whether they still serve a purpose. File analytics examines file infrastructure, metadata, and storage usage (e.g., who owns specific files, size, age) to optimize storage, improve security, and ensure compliance. Optionally it can include file contents as well. In contrast, Data analytics examines the actual content of data to extract business insights, identify trends, and drive decision-making.

Traditional file analytics tools are often tied to specific storage vendors and limited in the scale they can handle. Starfish Storage takes a different approach through its Unstructured Data Catalog, which operates out-of-band from the storage infrastructure itself. This metadata-driven architecture enables analysis across heterogeneous storage environments, spanning multiple file systems, vendors, and tiers, without impacting production performance. Starfish can also extract file headers, making them available for file analytics.

Through features like Starfish Zones, file analytics becomes a self-service capability. End users and administrators can explore their data, identify waste, and take action from a browser, without waiting on IT.