According to IDC, worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenues in the third quarter of 2006 grew 9.9% from a year ago to $4.3 billion, marking 14 consecutive quarters of year-over-year growth. For the quarter, the total disk storage systems market grew to $6.2 billion, up 7.9% from the prior year's quarter. For the first time, total disk storage systems capacity shipped 783 petabytes, growing 50.2% from a year ago quarter. In the total worldwide disk storage systems market, HP lead the market with 22.7% followed by IBM with 20.2% revenue share respectively. EMC maintained the third position with 15.0% revenue share. "There was a marked increase in average size and selling price for disk storage systems in the third quarter, particularly for systems selling between $50,000 and $300,000," said Brad Nisbet, program manager with IDC's Storage Systems Program. "IDC believes these larger systems are being fueled by a variety of drivers, including the consolidation that results from increased server virtualization, branch office consolidation, and a new wave of organizations looking to store vast amounts of fixed content." Total External Disk Storage Systems For the third quarter, EMC lead the external disk storage systems market with 21.4% revenue share followed by HP with 17.6% revenue share. IBM maintained the third position with 13.7% market share while Dell and Hitachi rounded the top 5 in a statistical tie with 8.0% and 7.9% revenue share, respectively. Among the top 5 vendors, EMC and IBM were the only two suppliers with double-digit year-over-year growth. Network Disk Storage Systems The total network disk storage market (NAS Combined with Open SAN) posted 17.2% year-over-year growth in the first quarter to more than $3.0 billion. EMC continues to maintain its leadership in the total network storage market with 27.1% revenue share, followed by HP and IBM with 17.9% and 12.5% revenue share, respectively. In the Open SAN market, which grew 17.3% year over year, EMC regained the number 1 position with 24.4% revenue share, followed by HP with 21.0%. The NAS market grew 16.7% year over year, led by EMC with 38.1% revenue share and followed by Network Appliance with 30.2% share. The iSCSI SAN market continues to show strong momentum, posting 108.4% revenue growth compared to the prior year's quarter. Network Appliance continues to lead the market with 21.5% share, followed by EMC with 16.9% share. "After a slowdown in growth during the first two quarters of 2006, the iSCSI SAN market returned to triple-digit year-over-year growth in the third quarter," said Natalya Yezhkova, research manager in IDC's Storage Systems program. "iSCSI continues to draw a great deal of attention among end users who are attracted to its ease of use and low TCO. IDC expects to see this adoption accelerate as vendors continue to increase their iSCSI product offerings over the next several quarters."