Which method is likely to consume the most storage when analyzing network traffic?

The method that is likely to consume the most storage when analyzing network traffic is packet captures. This approach involves capturing the entire contents of packets as they traverse a network. Since packet captures record not just the headers but also the payloads of each packet, the data volumes can become significantly large, especially in high-traffic environments.

Every packet contains detailed information and may vary in size; for example, larger packets with significant payloads contribute more heavily to storage consumption than summarized data formats. This comprehensive data capture is useful for in-depth analysis and forensic investigations but requires substantial disk space to store the raw data, making it the most storage-intensive method in the context of network analysis.

In contrast, the other methods—NetFlow, SOAP, and system logs—focus on summarization or specific types of metadata, which typically require much less storage. NetFlow is primarily concerned with metadata about traffic flows rather than the actual packet contents. SOAP involves message formatting specifications used in web services, and system logs generally record events in a more concise format, both of which would necessitate far less storage than packet captures.