Disk Drive Arrays Continue to Dominate Server Storage Markets, With 1997 Unit Shipments Pegged at Almost 1 Million Arrays
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 24, 1997--The increasing demand for fault tolerant disk storage for use with network file servers, mainframes and specialized computer systems continues to boost sales of disk drive arrays, popularly known as RAID subsystems.
The new DISK/TREND market study on disk drive arrays reports shipments of 775 thousand arrays in 1996, growing to an estimated 986 thousand in 1997, and projected to reach a shipment total of 1.5 million arrays in 2000.
Sales revenues for disk drive arrays are also growing, but not as fast as unit shipments. The sales total for 1996 was $10.7 billion, with 2000 forecasted to reach $17.1 billion. The slower sales revenue growth is caused by declining average unit prices for disk drive arrays, made possible by the efficiencies of larger scale manufacturing and declining disk drive price-per-megabyte levels.
Here are other highlights from the 1997 DISK/TREND Report on disk drive arrays:
The shakeout of manufacturers with marginal market shares is continuing. The 1995 DISK/TREND Report listed a peak count of 179 companies offering disk drive arrays under their own name, but the new report indicates only 149 companies remain in the disk drive array business in 1997. IBM, EMC, Digital Equipment and Compaq Computer were the leaders in worldwide 1996 sales. 77.8% of the existing disk drive array producers are headquartered in the United States, and U.S. companies produced over 92.2% of the 1996 revenue total. The largest market for disk drive arrays continues to be in network server and midrange system applications. In 1996, this product group produced 62.3% of the sales revenues for disk drive arrays and 93.5% of total unit shipments. Worldwide sales revenues for network/midrange system arrays are projected to climb from 1996's $6.7 billion to $14.3 billion in 2000. While most of the disk drive arrays currently offered in the network/midrange system market are designed for attachment to a server or processor host, a growing number of participating manufacturers are expected to add models designed for direct network attachment, making possible design simplification and lower cost. The total amount of disk storage used with mainframe computers is expected to continue growing through 2000, but sales revenues for mainframe arrays started a downward path in 1996. The 1996 total was slightly under $4 billion, with a decline to $2.6 billion projected for 2000. The demand for disk storage capacity used with mainframes is increasing at a healthy rate, but the average price-per-megabyte for high-end disk drives is decreasing even faster, depressing overall sales revenues. Disk drive arrays sold by the originating manufacturer as complete subsystems continue to dominate array shipments and are projected to provide 60.6% of the unit shipment total in 2000. Array controller boards, used by system manufacturers, integrators and do-it-yourselfers to assemble complete array subsystems, held 40.5% of the 1996 array total, but are destined to decline. The 2000 share for board-level array controllers is forecasted at 25.4%, as some personal computer network arrays start to use low cost array chip sets which can be mounted on system motherboards, eliminating the need for separate array controller boards. Software based array products are expected to hold 14% of the 2000 market, with usage concentrated in mirrored disk, or RAID-1, applications.
In addition to individual revenue and unit shipment projections for disk drive arrays in four separate product groups, the DISK/TREND Report provides a review of array system considerations, a checklist on array selection for prospective buyers, competitive market shares of manufacturers, and a review of competing data storage technologies. The report also contains basic product specifications on 678 disk drive array models and profiles of 182 existing and former manufacturers of disk drive arrays.
The new study on disk drive arrays was released as part of the series of four 1997 DISK/TREND Reports, detailed annual business reviews of the worldwide disk drive industry published by DISK/TREND, Inc. Separate reports on rigid disk drives were published in June, optical disk drives and libraries in August, and removable data storage in September.
The 1997 DISK/TREND Report on disk drive arrays is priced at $1,845. Subscriptions to the complete 1997 DISK/TREND Report, including all four product areas, are available at $7,044 by contacting DISK/TREND, Inc., 1925 Landings Drive, Mountain View, CA 94043, or through the company's Web site, disktrend.com .
DISK DRIVE ARRAYS
WORLDWIDE SALES REVENUES ($MILLION)
---------------Forecast--------------
1996
Revenues 1997 1998 1999 2000
-------- ---- ---- ---- ----
Single user
systems 38.6 46.7 58.4 69.8 81.4
Network/midrange
systems 6,704.3 8,948.6 10,891.2 12,763.8 14,292.7
Mainframe
systems 3,958.4 3,736.5 3,310.4 2,952.2 2,659.3
Very high performance
systems 58.3 93.3 114.3 127.6 135.3
------- ------- -------- -------- --------
TOTAL,
ALL ARRAYS 10,759.6 12,825.1 14,374.3 15,913.4 17,168.7
Source: 1997 DISK/TREND Report
Note to Editors: DISK/TREND reports are detailed market studies on the worldwide disk drive industry, with all data verified by field research. Now in its 21st year, DISK/TREND has tracked the disk drive industry longer than any other market research company.
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Contact:
DISK/TREND, Inc.
Bob Katzive, 650/961-6209
bkatzive@disktrend.com
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