Storage demand soars to 400 petabytes

Demand for external disk-based storage capacity has rocketed by just under two thirds year on year, with an astonishing 409 petabytes shipping globally during the first quarter of 2005.

According to IDC's Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Tracker, factory revenue in the worldwide external disk storage systems market grew 6.7 per cent year over year to $3.8bn in the first quarter of 2005, marking the eighth consecutive quarter of positive growth.

The total disk storage systems market grew at a slightly lower year-over-year rate of six per cent in the first quarter, the analyst firm found.

The breadth of growth shows that demand for disk storage systems is on the rise, although seasonal variations caused first-quarter revenues to be less than in the fourth quarter.

"Storage spending is clearly trending upward as organisations strive to stay ahead of their information storage demands," said Brad Nisbet, programme manager at IDC's Storage Systems Programme.

"After nearly two years of positive momentum, spending on storage systems, particularly those priced less than $300,000, continues to be a top priority in the ongoing efforts to expand and rebuild IT infrastructure."

EMC maintained its lead in the external disk storage systems market with 21.4 per cent revenue share, followed by HP (17.7 per cent) and IBM (11.5 per cent).

Hitachi edged out Dell for the fourth position with 9.1 per cent revenue share, while Dell ended the quarter with 7.7 per cent.

Among the top five suppliers, Dell and EMC posted the strongest year-over-year revenue growth during the first quarter, with 29.2 per cent and 12.2 per cent growth respectively.

"An analysis of top storage systems vendors performance over the past several quarters suggests that partnerships are becoming an important component of their market strategies," said Natalya Yezhkova, senior research analyst at IDC's Storage Systems Programme.

"This mutually beneficial approach allows each partner to offer more complete solutions for its customers, and often opens a door to new market segments and leads to growth in revenue and market shares."

The total network storage market (Nas combined with Open and iSCSI Sans) posted 16.7 per cent year-over-year growth in the first quarter to more than $2.3bn, according to the analyst firm.

EMC continues to maintain its leadership in the total network storage market with 29 per cent revenue share, followed by HP at 20.4 per cent.

Dell and Network Appliance posted the strongest year-over-year revenue growth for the quarter among the top five vendors, at 47.1 per cent and 29.7 per cent respectively.

In the Open/iSCSI San market, EMC became the leader in the first quarter with 26.7 per cent revenue share, ending four consecutive quarters of sharing the number one position with HP, which ended the quarter with 23.9 per cent revenue share.

In the Nas market, which grew 17 per cent year over year, EMC led with 37.9 per cent revenue share, followed by Network Appliance with 34.2 per cent share.