External disk storage continues to fizz

RESEARCH FIRM IDC released figures for external disk storage systems during the first quarter of this year.

According to IDC, external storage systems under $50,000 drove the growth in the first quarter - midrange and high end systems showed only modest gains. The total market was up 7.2 per cent from Q1 2006.

EMC continued to lead in the sector, followed by HP and IBM which effectively tied for the second position. Dell and Hitachi made up the top five, but Dell showed a 12 per cent year on year revenue growth.

Natalya Yezhkova, research manager at IDC storage said that external direct attached storage continues to fall, with network storage systems "cannibalising" that market. And internal storage grew by 10.5 per cent in Q1 2007. Server virtualisation, multicore processors and other developments means more servers with larger storage capacity are being sold.

Here are the IDC factory figures, with revenues in millions.

Vendor	Q1 2007	Share	Q1 2006	Share	Growth
EMC	$912	21.2%	$911	22.5%	0.1%
HP	$575	13.4%	$581	14.3%	-1%
IBM	$545	12.7%	$520	12.8%	4.8%
Dell	$383	8.9%	$342	8.4%	12%
Hitachi	$364	8.5%	$340	8.4%	7.1%
Others	$1,514	35.3%	$1,360	33.6%	11.3%
All	$4,292	100%	$4,053	100%	5.9%

HP selectively spun the IDC results by claiming the number one position in worldwide total disk storage revenues. µ