Disk array SmackDown: NetApp vs. IBM, Dell vs. HP

June 9, 2010 – In the external disk array market, it’s surprising how little changes in terms of the top five vendors’ market shares quarter-to-quarter or even year-to-year. The leading vendors almost always occupy the same rungs on the ladder. However, based on IDC’s Q1 2010 stats, market shares appear to be shifting.

Of course, EMC held on to its #1 spot in the first quarter with a 24.6% market share on revenue of $1.22 billion. But the rest of the race is tightening.

For example, for the first time NetApp pulled into a virtual dead heat with IBM for the #2 spot in the external disk systems market. IBM had an 11.7% market share, while NetApp had an 11.1% share. Statistically, IDC considers that to be a tie. Compared to Q1 2009, IBM slipped 0.5% in terms of market share while NetApp gained 2.3 points, leapfrogging both Dell and HP, which were in the #3 and #4 spots in the previous quarter.

If NetApp’s ascendancy continues at this clip, the company could eclipse Big Blue. And if NetApp’s first quarter and year-end earnings are any indication (see “NetApp wows Wall Street, doubles quarterly profits”), I think they will.

Rounding out the top five, HP slipped a bit in the first quarter, to a 10.2% market share, followed closely by Dell with a 10.1% share. Dead heat. And I predict that Dell will overtake HP in the next quarter because the revenue differential between the two was only $6 million in the first quarter ($506 million vs. $500 million).

Hitachi Data Systems and Oracle/Sun failed to crack the top five.

NetApp also gained market share in the NAS arena over the last quarter with a 26.9% share (vs. 20.2% in the last quarter), coming in second to EMC’s 45.1% market share (down from a 50.5% chunk in the last quarter).

Overall, the NAS market grew a whopping 44.6% year-over-year.

Equally impressive, the iSCSI SAN market posted 45.7% revenue growth in Q1 2010 vs. Q1 2009. Dell led the iSCSI market with a 36.9% revenue share, followed by NetApp with a 14.4% slice.

For IDC’s press release and more stats, see “Disk Storage Systems Market Rebounds to Double-Digit Growth Across All Segments in First Quarter.”

And the top 5 storage software vendors are . . .

March 12, 2010 – In yet another sign that a rebound is underway in the storage market (albeit a painfully slow one), the storage software market posted a slight increase in revenues in the fourth quarter of last year compared to Q4 2008 -- $3.094 billion vs. $3.079 billion, or a 0.5% increase. Q4 revenues were up 6.3% over Q3 (although Q4 numbers are almost always better than Q3).

That’s according to IDC’s recently released Worldwide Quarterly Storage Software Tracker report.

In the fourth quarter of 2009, EMC retained its top dog status with $734 million in storage software revenues and a commanding 23.7% market share, followed by Symantec (17.5%), IBM (13.2%), NetApp (7.9%), and HP (3.9%) and CA (3.8%) in a virtual dead heat for the #5 spot.

The only thing I found surprising here was NetApp’s strong showing. In fact, NetApp posted the greatest revenue gain from Q4 2008 to Q4 2009 – 7.9%. That increased the gap between NetApp and HP, which experienced a 12.1% decline in revenues from Q408 to Q409.

Looking at the full year, the picture doesn’t change much, although HP drops out of the top 5 list. On 2009 revenues of almost $2.7 billion, EMC was #1 with a market share of 22.7% (down from 24.4% in 2008), followed by Symantec (17.9%), IBM (13.5%), NetApp (8.0%) and CA (4.0%).

Under the storage software umbrella, IDC includes the following product categories: data protection and recovery, archiving, replication, storage management, device management, storage infrastructure, file systems, and “other.”

Related blog post:
Who are the top 5 array vendors?

IDC press releases:
“Storage Software Market Has Typical Fourth Quarter Jump, as Well as a Slight Increase from Last Year”
“Total Disk Storage Systems Turn a Corner, Posting First Year-Over-Year Gain in More Than Four Quarters”

Disk drive/array market getting SASsier

May 18, 2009 – I just got the most recent disk drive shipment projections from IDC, and I was surprised – not only at the rapid ascendancy of SAS but also the rapid demise of Fibre Channel drives.

For example, if IDC’s projections hold up, SAS will account for a full 50% of all enterprise-level drive shipments this year. The rapid growth of SAS comes at the expense of Fibre Channel, which is expected to account for only 19% of drive shipments this year. Enterprise-class SATA drives are expected to make up the remaining 31%, according to John Rydning, IDC’s research director, hard disk drives (HDDs).

And by 2012, IDC estimates that Fibre Channel will have a mere 1% market share, compared to 25% for SATA and 74% for SAS.

“Fibre Channel will continue in small volume after this year, mainly for existing systems that will continue to sell in 2010 and for aftermarket support of current installations,” says Rydning.

He expects next-generation (6Gbps) SAS to further spur adoption of SAS drives (6Gbps arrays are expected near the end of this year), as well as “capacity optimized” drives with native SAS interfaces.

Personally, I don’t think Fibre Channel drives will bite the dust quite so rapidly, but I don’t have access to the raw shipment figures that Rydning does, and he’s been pretty accurate at predicting these things in the past.

I was just surprised at the SAS projections because I still think of SAS as the new kid on the block.