NAS Market to Reach $7 Billion by 2017

Global Industry Analysts, Inc. announces a report of 427 pages with 40 companies cited on Network Attached Storage (NAS) Devices market.

World NAS devices market is forecast to reach $7.07 billion by the year 2017. With the official end to the recession, small and large enterprises are expected to witness turn up in commerce and accordingly refresh their storage and server systems.

The unrelenting rise in storage requirements, Internet led explosion in digital content, rising demand for more computing power, ever increasing length, breadth, scale and density of networks, together makes storage management a critical consideration. NAS technology, given its potential to address all of the issues mentioned above, has and will continue to remain in the limelight. NAS is storage architecture with an aim to deliver businesses with cost-effective, scalable, and manageable alternatives for ever-growing data requirements.

NAS is one-of-its kind networked storage technology that allows connected host systems to share data. NAS devices have gained immense popularity in a short span of time, thanks to the wide range of benefits that they offer. As companies modernize their enterprise-networking infrastructure, driven by the need to remain competitive, and retain critical survival capabilities, such as, agility and flexibility in a fast changing marketplace, it is opportunities galore for technologies like NAS and SAN. The tough economic conditions have additionally reinforced the need to upgrade storage area network infrastructure in a cost-effective, yet compelling way. There are several advantages stacked in the favor of NAS technology, including, increase in data availability, improvements in server performance, optimized data access, end-user transparency, ease of setup, low installation and maintenance costs, and platform-independence.

NAS devices market is not impervious to the economic slowdown but remains resilient. The economic recession necessitated network operators and network equipment manufacturers to prune down investment outlays in the year 2009 to hedge the financial weakness in the market as well as in the balance sheets. The recession led deterioration of corporate and consumer confidence, shrinking income and asset values across different markets resulted in reduction or postponement of spending on network storage devices. Tightening budgets also resulted in longer purchasing cycles for storage solutions, and delay in adoption of technologies and launch of next-generation NAS devices designed to optimize storage utilization and reduce total cost of ownership. Likewise, consumer sector also adopted a cautious approach due to unstable employment scenario. Potential buyers turned reluctant to purchase new external storage solutions due to limited financial resources.

The replacement market was sluggish, as consumers tend to wait for more compelling reasons to upgrade, or in anticipation of further price reductions. Although the recession has temporarily thrown the NAS market as a whole off guard, the market is expected to quickly regain poise. This is primarily because cost cutting measures and blanket spending freezes, which are typically knee jerk reactions to a deteriorating economic climate, cannot continue for long in the storage solutions industry. Enterprises require continuous investments even in depressed economic climate, as data storage has become a vital component of the enterprise IT environment. Businesses constantly demand round-the-clock access to large pools of shared data including employee database, inventory and customer record.

As stated by the new market research report, Europe and North America accounts for a major share of the global NAS devices market. Growth rates in emerging nations are encouraging, although coming from a much smaller base due to low penetration rate. As the economy and employment picture brighten, the growth potential of NAS devices for 2011 onwards is improving. By segment, Enterprise NAS devices is the largest contributor to global market revenues. Global market revenues for Departmental NAS devices are expected to surge at a fastest CAGR of 15.9% through 2017.

Major players in the global marketplace include BlueArc Corporation, Buffalo Inc, Dell Inc, EMC Corporation, Isilon Systems, Hewlett-Packard Company, Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, International Business Machines Corporation, LSI Corporation, NetApp Inc, NetGear Inc, Overland Storage Inc, Panasas Inc, Pillar Data Systems, SGI Corporation, among others.