FRAMINGHAM, USA: Worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenues posted 10.8 percent year-over-year growth in the first quarter of 2008 (1Q08) and totaling $4.9 billion, according to the IDC Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker.

For the quarter, the total disk storage systems market grew to $6.7 billion in revenues, up 8.4 percent from the prior year's first quarter. Total disk storage systems capacity shipped reached 1,642 petabytes, growing 51.8 percent year over year.

"After a very healthy 2007, the disk storage systems market is carrying that momentum into 2008, with most product segments seeing solid growth in the first quarter," said Brad Nisbet, research manager, IDC. "It's clear that while organizations may be feeling squeezed in their overall IT budgets, the investments being made to store growing volumes of critical business data adequately are increasing. We see a long road of positive drivers fueling the opportunities for disk storage systems in the form of increased retention requirements and long-term data protection goals."

Total external disk storage systems
For the first quarter, EMC maintained its lead in the external disk storage systems market with 21.4 percent revenue share, followed by HP and IBM with 12.4 percent and 11.5 percent revenue share, respectively. Dell, NetApp, and Hitachi ended the quarter in a statistical tie to round out the top five with 9.3 percent, 9 percent, and 8.9 percent revenue share, respectively. Among the top five suppliers, Hitachi and Dell posted the strongest year-over-year revenue growth during 1Q08, with 19.1 percent and 17.5 percent, respectively.
Network disk storage systems
The total network disk storage market (NAS Combined with Open SAN) posted 14.9 percent year-over-year growth in the first quarter to more than $3.6 billion in revenues. EMC continues to maintain its leadership in the total network storage market with 26.4 percent revenue share, followed by NetApp and HP in a statistical tie with each holding 12 percent revenue share.

"The storage systems market was shining in the first quarter. Even segments that have been declining for quarters, including external direct-attach storage and JBOD, showed positive performance to start the year," said Natalya Yezhkova, research manager for storage systems at IDC. "This break in trends is attributable to the growing diversity of storage customers, including small and medium-sized businesses and content-centric customers, whose storage needs differ from those of the traditional customer base."

In the Open SAN market, which grew 14.7 percent year over year, EMC lead with 23.6 percent revenue share, followed by HP with 14.1 percent. The NAS market grew 15.5 percent year over year, led by EMC with 36 percent revenue share and followed by NetApp with 31.6 percent share.

The iSCSI SAN market continues to show strong momentum, posting 67.6 percent revenue growth compared to the prior year's quarter. Dell, through its acquisition of EqualLogic, led the market with 27.7 percent revenue share, followed by NetApp with 20.5 percent share.

Total Disk Storage Systems Market
In the total worldwide disk storage systems market, HP lead the market with 19.4 percent revenue share, followed by IBM and EMC in a statistical tie, with 15.6 percent and 15.4 percent revenue share, respectively.