SMB-NAS revenues to touch $2 bn by 2015: In-Stat

BANGALORE, INDIA: Revenues from the worldwide sales of small-and-medium business (SMB) network-attached storage (NAS) are expected to reach $2 billion in 2015 to reflect the technology's faster growth rate over the total NAS market, says a recent research survey of market intelligence company, In-Stat.

The new In-Stat research report, entitled "Worldwide SMB Network-Attached Storage: Technology and Service Innovation Drive High Growth," has provided survey results on the coverage of the SMB-NAS market, including survey data on the use of NAS and cloud storage services, as well as an in-depth overview of the market and technology trends, said a press release.

While cloud storage or the networked online storage of data has gained wide popularity, the new In-Stat research showed that more than seven of ten small-and-medium-sized businesses that use cloud-based storage solutions also use NAS.

NAS, a specialized server connected to a network that provides file-based data storage services to other devices on the network, typically has the capability to support one or more hard disk drives (HDDs), often including features, such as the redundant array of independent disks (RAID) and back up/replication services for all the devices attached to the network.

The In-Stat research report also showed that while SMB NAS represented a smaller portion of the total NAS market, SMB NAS is expected to grow at a much faster rate over the forecast period, with 84.6 per cent of the projected SMB NAS sales revenues coming from the North American and European markets.

“As the market has matured, the definition of NAS has taken on additional aspects,” says Norm Bogen, VP Research, In-Stat.

"In particular, system management software has evolved into the most important feature of NAS adoption for several reasons, but primarily because it simplifies the user experience to set up and manage NAS products," Bogen said.

The In-Stat research also reported that 57.3 per cent of the SMB survey respondents used NAS technology products, while survey respondents who "don't use NAS" tend to have less than 50 employees.

The key data highlights of the new In-Stat research survey included information on the worldwide total NAS and SMB NAS vendor market shares, total NAS shipments by vendor size, SMB NAS shipments by capacity, total NAS shipments by price tier, SMB NAS shipments and SMB NAS revenues.