Communications and Technology Industry Research

IDC (News - Alert) recently released a forecast for the worldwide removable hard disk drive (R-HDD) market. The company predicted that opportunities look bright for R-HDD adoption.

 

Totaling more than 3 million R-HDD solutions and additional disk cartridges in 2012, worldwide shipments will increase at a 65 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR), IDC said. In the same time, total worldwide R-HDD revenue will grow equally as strong with a 52 percent CAGR.

 

IDC is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community makes fact-based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy.

 

R-HDDs have been considered as an ideal alternative to tape and they are positioned alongside low-end tape drives. IDC believes that in the coming year, R-HDD solutions will make an impact the on the low-end tape drives, such as DDS/DAT negatively as the majority of the R-HDD solutions will be used for direct-attached server and host-based backup and recovery functions.

 

One of the major reasons for the growth of the IDC has been that the current R-HDD solutions are increasingly based on standardized products that allow for data sharing and interchange. Previously, R-HDDs have been largely proprietary solutions with no ability to interchange data.

 

IDC's study, Worldwide 2007-2012 Removable Hard Disk Drive Forecast and Analysis, offers an historical perspective of the R-HDD market and guidance to R-HDD suppliers and personal storage device providers.

 

Robert Amatruda, research director for Tape and Removable Storage at IDC, said in a statement, “While the new group of R-HDD solutions are being positioned as tape replacement products, the challenge for large, tape-centric OEMs will be transitioning customers to R-HDDs while managing their large, profitable tape portfolios.”