Enterprise Storage Forum reports on findings from two leading industry researchers that a recovery may be underway — although as IDC and Gartner point out, the pain hasn’t receded yet. Still, the signs are largely positive, with some areas looking especially bright.
Analysts from Gartner and IDC are seeing signs that the data storage market may finally be turning around.
Gartner reported that worldwide external controller-based disk storage revenue declined 7.3 percent from a year ago to $3.9 billion in the third quarter.
IDC said worldwide external disk storage system factory revenue fell 10 percent to $4.4 billion, but noted sequential growth in all market segments from the second quarter, the first time that’s happened since the fourth quarter of 2008.
Donna Taylor, principal research analyst for Gartner’s global Storage Quarterly Statistics program, called the news “the first sign of a light at the end of the tunnel.”
Taylor noted particular strength in the network-attached storage (NAS) market, which she said was the result of greater emphasis on the storage networking technology by both vendors and users.
“More business sizes are purchasing this technology, not just small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) anymore, but large enterprises as well,” Taylor told Enterprise Storage Forum.