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. Opportunities in the consumer network storage market include NAS, SAN, NDAS, and Windows Home Server platforms.

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.

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,” said Joyce Putscher, principal analyst, residential connectivity at In-Stat. “Consumer education is likely to benefit from Windows Home Server (WHS) partners.”

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

• 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.

About this study

The research, “Global Consumer Network Storage: Adding Media Servers, Remote Access and DLNA” (#IN0804085RC), covers the worldwide market for home network storage. This global report includes forecasts through 2012 for each market segmentation by region, price tier, and storage capacity, in addition to wired vs. wireless LAN segments, and provides discussions about consumer network storage market trends, technology trends, suppliers, and 2007 worldwide vendor market shares. In addition, a detailed vendor matrix of product lines, models, and features is also provided.

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