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Sharad Srivastava
Director, Sales,
India & South Asia Western Digital
The phenomenal appetite for digital storage capacity from businesses as well as individuals continues to fuel HDD demand.
The availability and advancement of digital devices have generated the need to store data and stimulated the rapid adoption of storage.
2008 was full of developments in the HDD space, with continued improvements in form factors, rotation speeds, recording technologies, energy consumption and encryption. A major theme among HDD vendors has been reduced energy consumption. Other key trends in 2008 were:
External drive segment. Sales of external and portable storage picked up rapidly fuelled by the growth in the sales of notebooks, which led to the need for more portable storage because consumers are creating more personalized digital content today.
Surveillance industry. The demand for surveillance solutions is rapidly increasing, especially in public places, where the need to record/store all video footage is of utmost importance. The adoption of digital technology is growing quickly in this space, and so is the availability of fast, reliable and specialized data storage.
Retail segment. With the launch of large-format retailers, customers have a whole new avenue to shop and vendors have a new avenue for sales.
Growth in smaller cities. The segment is continuing to grow at a rapid pace in smaller cities, and while this accounts for a small percentage of sales for most vendors, it is still the segment to look out for in 2009.
Demand for small-office network storage. The popularity of home networks is growing, with penetration as high as 50 percent in some countries. Network-attached storage makes it simpler for small offices and workgroups to centralize storage for easy accessibility, both within the network and remotely.
Gazing into the crystal ball, we can expect a lot of sales from the retail segment which will provide users with the ability to be selective. Partners will have to adapt to the new-age customer.
Media players. 2009 will see greater use of HDD-based systems in digital entertainment. Portable drives will convert into media players. This will offer consumers an effective way to enjoy digital content on their biggest screen and best sound system.
Higher capacities. 2008 saw the entry of 500 GB capacity 2.5 inch drives, and 1 TB 3.5 inch HDDs. 2009 will see more TBs of music, videos and photos that we can carry in the palm of our hand. We will see the launch of products with higher capacity, faster transfer rates and lower failure rates.
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