Consumer Network Attached Storage (NAS) Market Analysis

Market Insight-Global Consumer Network Attached Storage (NAS) Market

Market Overview

Network-attached storage (NAS) is computer data storage connected to a computer network, in order to provide data access to diverse group of clients. NAS facilitates consumers to share media files between several computers and portable entertainment devices. NAS typically servers files by its software, hardware or configuration. Consumers around the globe are implementing network attached storage (NAS) that can help businesses and consumers to attain operational efficiencies and minimize the cost of storage. All these objectives can be achieved with network attached storage (NAS).

The global Consumer Network Attached Storage (NAS) market was valued at US$ 2318.9 Mn in terms of value in 2019

Market Dynamics- Drivers

1. Incapability of conventional storage facilities to handle a large amount of data is expected to drive growth of the global consumer network attached storage (NAS) market during the forecast period

The conventional modes of storage of critical information and data have become inefficient for current demands. Moreover, fast access to vast amounts of data is another major challenge in this scenario. Conventional small computer systems interface (SCSI) technology utilizes parallel cabling, which reduces speed, distance, and limits the number of attached storage devices. Furthermore, there has been a significant shift from server-centric to data-centric models, thus efficient access to shared data resources has become essential. Rising growth of information that requires storage, management, maintenance, and retrieval has compelled consumers to make storage decisions separate from server decisions. Hence, these factors are expected to drive the market growth over the forecast period.

2. Growing demand for efficient and easy backup operations is expected to propel the global consumer network attached storage (NAS) market over the forecast period

Incorporation of high performance backup and restore capability and device sharing, numerous issues regarding performance have been improved. These issues are namely extended downtime periods, shrinking backup windows, and performance degradation. However, increase in backup operation competence with server-less backup offered by NAS architecture is expected to propel the global consumer network attached storage (NAS) market growth over the forecast period.        

The North America market for global Consumer Network Attached Storage (NAS) market is estimated to account for 30.3% share in terms of value in 2019.

Source: Coherent Market Insights

Market Dynamics- Restraint

1. Growing adoption of cloud-based storage devices is various emerging economies is expected to restrain growth of the global consumer network attached storage (NAS) market over the forecast period

Previously, servers for storage purposes were procured at different IT infrastructure components by different groups within the IT department and under different parts of the IT budget. However, incorporation of cloud-based services has changed the overall approach. Furthermore, adoption of virtualization technique in storage and server has resulted in significant shift in procurement and deployment of data center infrastructure. E Enterprises are shifting from purchasing separate network attached storage systems and adopting cloud storage for noncritical data. These factors are expected to hinder the market growth in the near future.

2. High cost and complexity related to NAS are expected to hinder the global consumer network attached storage (NAS) market growth over the forecast period

Although NAS provides highly sophisticated services, it is relatively expensive and complicated proprietary at the same time. NAS systems are considered to be virtually failure-proof though major performance failures and outages in the cloud in the recent past have been related to failures of significant degradation or NAS in system performance. Moreover, high cost and complicated nature of NAS is compelling end user to shift towards cloud for high-performance and reliable storage. This, in turn, is expected to hamper the market growth over the forecast period.

Market Opportunities

1. Growing adoption of NAS systems in small- and mid-sized enterprises (SME) is major market opportunity

Increasing use of network attached storage system by small- and mid-sized enterprises is expected to present lucrative growth opportunity for market players. The adoption of NAS in small- and mid-sized enterprises is supported by various benefits offered NAS such as shared storage, flexibility to share capacity between numerous hosts, and centralized control. This has compelled NAS vendors to constantly focus on easy-to-use and cost-effective products for SMEs. This, in turn, is expected to offer significant growth opportunity for market players.

2. High growth of Internet of Things (IoT) and big data market is expected to provide excellent business opportunity

Integration of Internet of Things and big has increased the adoption of NAS system. Big data offers systematical and analytical information from complex data sets. Moreover, IoT provides interrelated computing devices, which in turn, is boost the adoption of NAS in various end-use industries. Hence, integration of IoT and big data are presenting lucrative business opportunities for market players.

Source: Coherent Market Insights

Market Trends

1. Penetration of e-commerce websites is increasing adoption of NAS

Growing adoption of online channels among consumers, has increased penetration of e-commerce websites in the recent past. These e-commerce applications are highly resource-intensive due to the type of requests that are processed simultaneously per second. Thousands of customers visit, place orders, and pay, per second, and all this information is required to be stored in the database for later retrieval. Furthermore, NASs are being used for their high-performance and fast I/O characteristics, in order to store information about high traffic databases.

2. Advent of unified storage systems is another major trend in the market

Advent and adoption of hybrid NAS-SAN solutions has become a major trend in the market. These solutions facilitate enterprises to merge file-based and block data on a common way. Unified storage systems support file, along with block-based protocols such as FC and NFS, and HDD and flash-based storage drives. Architecture of unified storage systems is relatively more complicated as compared to individual implementations though it is expected to be more simplified in the near future, in order to meet increasing demand from enterprises. These developments are expected to reduce the dependency of enterprises on a single architecture for their dynamic requirements.           

Segment information:

In Global Consumer Network Attached Storage (NAS) Market, by design segment, the standalone sub-segment dominated the global market in 2019, accounting for 62.9% share in terms of value, followed by Racmount.

Source: Coherent Market Insights

Value Chain Analysis

Competitive Section

Key companies operating in the global consumer network attached storage (NAS) market are D-Link Corporation, Seagate Technology Public Limited Company, Synology Inc., Netgear, Inc., Drobo Inc., Western Digital Corporation, QNAP Systems, Inc., NEC Corporation, ASUSTOR Inc., and EMC Corporation.

Key Developments

1. Key companies in the market are focused on partnerships and collaborations, in order to gain competitive edge in the market. For instance, in January 2017, QNAP Systems Inc. partnered with IFTTT, thereby releasing IFTTT agent for QNAP NAS, which allows users to create NAS specific applets that enable automation and also enhances efficiency of its products.
2. Key companies in the market are involved in product launches, in order to enhance their product portfolio. For instance, in January 2017, Synology Inc. launched various NAS products such as RackStation RS18017xs+ and RS4017xs in order to enhance its product offerings and expand customer base. These products offer features such as faster data processing speeds and flexible scalability.