SMB Demand Drives Consumer NAS Market

Small and midsized businesses (SMBs) are helping to push the consumer NAS (network-attached storage) market to new heights, according to Grand View Research.

Large enterprises aren’t the only ones struggling with ever-increasing amounts of data. SMBs are also looking for places to stash critical files, prompting them to snatch up consumer NAS gear, asserts the analyst group.

A new forecast from Grand View Research predicts that the market for consumer NAS solutions will grow to $8.2 billion by 2025 as SMBs seek out cost-effective solutions for their file storage and backup needs. During the intervening years, the firm expects the market to expand at a healthy compound annual growth rate of 15.8 percent.

“The growth of consumer Network Attached Storage market is primarily driven due to the low cost of product and easy installation, along with network sharing of data, which enhances the user’s accessibility of data among the in-house or office network,” observed Grand View Research, in a July 10 announcement. “Innovative solution offerings such as cloud backup offerings which can be integrated with the consumer Network Attached Storage system further drives the demand for consumer NAS market.”

Grand View Research expects that dual-bay designs, which as the term suggests can accommodate two hard drives, will be the fastest-growing segment (16.9 percent CAGR) of the market. Demand for four-bay units is also on the rise.

Meanwhile, device makers keep pushing the limit of their standalone NAS appliances.

QNAP’s TS-x77 line of NAS devices are powered by high-performance Ryzen processors from AMD and up to 64GB DDR4 RAM, enabling the hardware to accelerate data encryption and storage workloads. Buyers can pick from six-, eight- and 12-bay models.

Last month, Synology launched two new desktop NAS solutions, the five-bay DiskStation DS1517 and eight-bay DS1817, which can accommodate up to 150TB and 180TB, respectively, when outfitted with the company’s optional expansion units. Both offer gigabit Ethernet network connectivity and expandable RAM, enabling SMBs to coax brisk file transfer speeds out of the compact systems as their file storage and sharing needs grow.

“Growing small and medium-sized businesses expect a cost-effective storage solution that is versatile and expandable for their future demands, while minimizing the initial investment required,” said Katarina Shao, product Manager at Synology, in a statement. “The DS1517 and DS1817 are engineered to fulfill such needs, and provides the high performance and flexible scalability to manage, protect, and share data at work.”

Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at Enterprise Storage Forum. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.