Cloud storage no threat to SMB NAS systems, survey shows

Only the smallest firms didn't use NAS along with cloud services

Cloud storage services don't represent the death knell for small and medium-sized business (SMB) network-attached storage (NAS), which is expected to grow to more than $2 billion in 2015.

According to a survey by market research firm In-Stat released today, about seven in 10 SMBs that use cloud-based storage services today also use onsite NAS systems.

In 2010, worldwide SMB unit shipments grew by 46.5 per cent.

When it comes to enterprise-class companies, only 10 per cent are considering the public cloud as a place to store even their lowest tier of data for archive purposes, according to a recent survey by market research firm TheInfoPro.

The survey of 247 Fortune 1000 corporations was released last month. Asked about storage-as-a-service, 87 per cent of the respondents indicated that they had no plans to use the public cloud, 10 per cent said that they would use it, and three per cent indicated that they weren't sure.

While SMB NAS represents a smaller portion of the total NAS market, SMB NAS is expected to grow at a much faster rate over the next four years. North America and Europe are expected to represent 84.6 per cent of the revenue opportunity for the SMB NAS market.

"As the market has matured, the definition of NAS has taken on additional aspects," Norm Bogen, vice president of In-Stat Research, said in a statement. "In particular, system management software has evolved into the most important feature of NAS adoption for several reasons, but primarily because it simplifies the user experience to set up and manage NAS products."

According to the survey, 57.3 per cent of SMB survey respondents use NAS technology products. Those respondents who didn't use NAS systems tended to have fewer than 50 employees.

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More about: etwork, NAS, Technology
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Tags: network-attached storage, Networked Storage, storage, InfoPro, In-Stat, cloud computing, internet
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