FRAMINGHAM, MASS, USA: Worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenues posted 16.7 percent year-over-year growth totaling $5.1 billion in the second quarter of 2008 (2Q08), according to the IDC Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker.

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 over year.

Natalya Yezhkova, research manager, Storage Systems at IDC, said: "Despite concerns about a 2008 slowdown in IT spending, external disk storage systems spending experienced strong growth in the first half of 2008. The second quarter of the year was remarkable, not only because it is 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."

Total External Disk Storage Systems

EMC maintained its lead in the external disk storage systems market with 21.7% revenue share in the second quarter, followed by IBM and HP in a statistical tie with 13.1 percent and 12.9 percnt revenue share, respectively. Dell ended the quarter in the fourth position with 9.2 percent share. NetApp and Hitachi finished the quarter in a statistical tie for fifth with 8.0 percent and 7.6 percent revenue share respectively. Among the top five suppliers, EMC and NetApp posted the strongest year-over-year revenue growth during 2Q08, with 19.7 percent and 17.2 percent growth, respectively.

Network Disk Storage Systems

The total network disk storage market (NAS Combined with Open SAN) posted 22.0 percent year-over-year 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 26.4 percent revenue share, followed by HP with 12.9 percent revenue share.

In the Open SAN market, which grew 15.5 percent year over year, EMC lead with 23.9 percent revenue share, followed by HP with 16.7 percent. The NAS market grew 23.5 percent year over year, led by EMC with 39.8 percent revenue share and followed by NetApp with 28.5 percent share. The iSCSI SAN market continues to show strong momentum, posting 93.9 percent revenue growth compared to the prior year's quarter.