Global disk storage revenues up 16.7%

Worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenues posted a 16.7-percent growth to $5.1 billion in the second quarter of 2008, according to IT research firm International Data Corp. (IDC).

In its quarterly tracker, IDC reported that for the quarter, the total disk storage systems market grew to $6.9 billion in revenues, up 10.9 percent from the prior year’s second quarter. Total disk storage systems capacity shipped reach 1,777 petabytes, growing 43.7 percent year-on-year.

IDC defines a disk storage system as a set of storage elements, including controllers, cables and (in some) host bus adapters associated with three or more disks. A system may be located outside of or within a server cabinet and the average cost of the disk storage systems does not include infrastructure storage hardware (i.e. switches) and non-bundled storage software.

“Despite concerns about a 2008 slowdown in IT spending, external disk storage systems spending experienced strong growth in the first half of 2008,” according to IDC storage systems research manager Natalya Yezhkova.

She noted the second quarter of the year was remarkable, not only because it was the highest growth in two years, but also because of the distribution of this growth across different market segments.

The ability of vendors to meet a variety of needs among customers with a diversity of storage products and initiatives led to solid growth across all installation environments, even in those that declined over the past several quarters,” she added.

EMC maintained its lead in the external disk storage systems market with a 21.7-percent revenue share in the second quarter, followed by IBM and HP with 13.1 percent and 12.9 percent revenue share, respectively. Dell ended the quarter in fourth position with a 9.2-percent share. NetApp and Hitachi finished the quarter with eight percent and 7.6 percent revenue share, respectively.

Among the top five suppliers, EMC and NetApp posted the strongest revenue growth during the second quarter, with 19.7 percent and 17.2 percent growth, respectively.

The total network disk storage market posted a 22-percent growth in the second quarter to more than $3.8 billion in revenues. EMC continues to maintain its leadership in the total network storage market with a 26.4-percent revenue share, followed by HP with 12.9 percent revenue share.

In the Open SAN market, EMC leads with 23.9 percent revenue share, followed by HP with 16.7 percent. The NAS market grew 23.5 percent led by EMC with 39.8 percent revenue share, followed by NetApp with 28.5 percent share.

The iSCSI SAN market continues to show strong momentum, posting a 93.9-percent revenue growth compared to the prior year’s quarter. Dell, through its acquisition of EqualLogic, led the market with 32.8 percent revenue share, followed by NetApp and EMC, with 14.6 percent and 14.1 percent share, respectively.

— Mary Ann Reyes