Data storage grows at record pace
Market for disk storage systems in third quarter grows record 12.5 percent year over year; EMC slips but stays on top.
EMC kept its top standing in the $3.88 billion global market for external disk storage, with a 20.3 percent share compared with 21.3 percent a year earlier, IDC said late Thursday.
EMC was followed by Hewlett-Packard, whose share grew to 19.1 percent from 18.7 percent, and by IBM, which rose to 12.9 percent from 12 percent.
Demand for computer storage has been gaining as companies are forced to back up vast amounts of e-mail, documents and other data to comply with new regulations, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, aimed at improving corporate accountability. Businesses also are investing in storage to protect data from disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes.
Total third-quarter disk storage grew 58 percent to 505 petabytes, IDC said. A petabyte is equal to 1 million gigabytes, which in turn is about the same as 25,000 notebook computers each holding 40GB.
Dell advanced to the No. 4 position in the IDC survey with 8.4 percent of the market, up from 7.1 percent a year earlier. It displaced Hitachi, which dropped to fifth place with 8.3 percent.
Dell had the fastest storage revenue growth in the period, gaining 33.5 percent to $325 million, followed by IBM with a 20.2 percent revenue gain to $499 million, IDC said.
In the third quarter of 2004, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Hitachi all had storage revenue declines compared with the third quarter of 2003, according to IDC.