"Storage Wars" is a popular reality TV show, but the title may seem all too real to enterprises trying to deal with storage demands as they drown in data. The battlefield has changed dramatically. Organizations are faced with storing billions or even trillions of files – increasingly unstructured data, large digital files such as videos and images. And the old solution – simply adding more physical storage – doesn't work anymore. It's too expensive, inefficient and unmanageable.

Fortunately, technology has a way of solving the problems that technology creates, and new approaches to storage are emerging to attack the deluge of data pouring from Internet-connected devices and systems. We are seeing a major shift in how today's enterprise storage is being developed. The emphasis now is on data management at today's scale – intelligent, software-based systems that provide scalable, fast and reliable data storage systems and enable organizations to focus on extracting value from data rather than managing storage.

In this slideshow, Brett Goodwin, vice president of Marketing, Qumulo, has identified the top five disruptors in enterprise storage today.