Tuesday, 15 April 2008

Consumer Network Storage Market Grew Faster in '07

With consumer use of digital video and digital music on the rise, and significant penetration of home networks by broadband users, consumers are increasingly considering network storage, reports In-Stat.

The consumer network storage market grew at a faster pace in 2007, compared to 2006, and it has more than doubled in the last two years, the high-tech market research firm says. Although competition in this space has increased with more players, sound opportunities can be captured, including NAS, SAN, NDAS, and Windows Home Server platforms.

Vendors had been waiting for consumers to catch up with their network storage offerings, but that has begun to change.

"However, many consumers are still not familiar with LAN-capable storage products," says Joyce Putscher, In-Stat analyst.

"Consumer education is likely to benefit from Windows Home Server (WHS) partners."
Other findings include:

• WHS purchasers will mainly be educated by PC vendors, while traditional network storage purchasers will be educated by networking equipment and storage vendors.

• Capacities over 500GB made solid progress in 2007.

• In-Stat's industry-leading vendor matrix shows that media serving features continue to penetrate more models, as do remote access and DLNA compatibility.