FRAMINGHAM, Mass., September 4, 2009 – Worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenues posted a decline of 18.3% year over year in the second quarter of 2009 (2Q09), totaling $4.1 billion, according to the IDC Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker. For the quarter, total disk storage systems factory revenues fell to $5.7 billion, a decline of 18.7% from the prior year's second quarter, driven by continued weakness in server systems sales. Total disk storage systems capacity shipped reached 2,345 petabytes, growing 15.2% year over year.

"The enterprise storage systems market continued to feel the impact of current economic conditions, posting its third straight year-over-year decline. However, certain sweet spots in the market continue to thrive," said Liz Conner, research analyst, Storage Systems. "iSCSI SAN and FC SAN both showed strong year-over-year growth of 57.2% and 66.8%, respectively, in the entry level price bands ($0K-$14.99K) as customers continue to demand enterprise level network storage at a more economically friendly price point. Similarly, midrange NAS (price band $15K-$49.99K) enjoyed solid year-over-year growth of 20.7% as file-level data generation continues to be a hot topic for many customers."

Total External Disk Storage Systems

EMC maintained its lead in the external disk storage systems market with 21.5% revenue share in the second quarter, followed by IBM with 14.9% revenue share. HP ended in the third position with 11.4% market share. Dell and NetApp finished the quarter in a statistical tie for fourth position with 9.8% and 8.9% revenue share, respectively.

"While all vendors are down year over year, we are beginning to see several storage vendors whose external disk storage revenues are showing sequential (quarter-over-quarter) growth, indicating some stability beginning to take shape in the market," said Steve Scully, research manager, Enterprise Storage at IDC.

Network Disk Storage Systems

The total network disk storage market (NAS Combined with Open / iSCSI SAN) declined 15.3% year over year in the second quarter to more than $3.2 billion in revenues. EMC continues to maintain its leadership in the total network storage market with 26.0% revenue share, followed by IBM with 13.8% revenue share.

In the Open SAN market, which declined 23.8% year over year, EMC led with 23.1% revenue share. The NAS market declined 6.8% year over year, led by EMC with 38.7% revenue share and followed by NetApp with 26.1% share. The iSCSI SAN market continues to show strong momentum, posting 27.2% revenue growth compared to the prior year's quarter. Dell led the market with 35.3% revenue share, followed by EMC with 15.7%.

Source: IDC Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker, September 4, 2009

* Note: Starting in Q4 2008, HP is reported as the combined entity of HP and LeftHand.

** Note: Starting in Q1 2008, Dell is reported as the combined entity of Dell and EqualLogic.

Total Disk Storage Systems Market

In the total worldwide disk storage systems market, IBM and HP finished the second quarter in a statistical tie with 17.3% each followed by EMC with 15.7% market share.

Source: IDC Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker,, September 4, 2009

* Note: Starting in Q4 2008, HP is reported as the combined entity of HP and LeftHand.

** Notes: Starting in Q1 2008, Dell is reported as the combined entity of Dell and EqualLogic.

Taxonomy Notes:

IDC defines a Disk Storage System as a set of storage elements, including controllers, cables, and (in some instances) 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.

The information in this quantitative study is based on a branded view of the disk storage systems sale. Revenue associated with the products to the end user is attributed to the seller (brand) of the product, not the manufacturer. Original equipment manufacturer (OEM) sales are not included in this study. In this study, Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) sales do not reflect their OEM sales to Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard.

IDC's Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker is a quantitative tool for analyzing the global disk storage market on a quarterly basis. The Tracker includes quarterly shipments and revenues (both customer and factory), Terabytes, $/Gigabyte, Gigabyte/Unit, and Average Selling Value. Each criteria can be segmented by location, installation base, operating system, vendor, family, model, and region.

For more information about IDC's Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker, please contact Hoang Nguyen at 508-935-4718 or hnguyen@idc.com.

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