Global ECB Disk Storage Achieves 18.1% Revenue Growth In 2010

While other IT infrastructure segments have yet to reach their previous record revenue mark, worldwide external controller-based (ECB) disk storage exceeded its previous high set in 2008 by $1.4 billion in 2010, according to Gartner, Inc. Worldwide ECB storage revenue surpassed $19.4 billion in 2010, an 18.1 percent increase from 2009 revenue of $16.5 billion.

“Storage infrastructure modernisation, expanded server and desktop virtualisation projects, disk-based backup and archiving deployments, new file-oriented applications, and cloud-based service offerings are the engines that are propelling ECB disk storage vendor revenue growth,” said Roger Cox, Research Vice President, Gartner. “Clearly, IT executives are showing a willingness to invest in new and modern ECB disk storage solutions that address complexity, reduce opex and improve utilisation while satisfying demanding service-level agreements.”

With 80 percent share, it is noteworthy to observe that even though block-access ECB disk storage grew 14.9 percent over 2009 in 2010, this large segment grew only 3.4 percent over 2008. File-access ECB disk storage grew 36.2 percent in 2010 over 2009, as well as 37.6 percent over 2008.

EMC increased its worldwide ECB disk storage revenue market share to 28 percent in 2010 and 28.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010 (see Tables 1 and 2). NetApp experienced the strongest growth among the top-tier vendors in 2010 with a revenue increase of 50.9 percent from 2009.

Gartner ECB disk storage reports reflect hardware only revenue, as well as hardware revenue associated with financial leases and managed services. Optional and separately priced storage software revenue and storage area network infrastructure components are excluded.