Consumers prefer data on a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device over saving it to cloud storage because of privacy and security concerns and bandwidth consumption, according to market research company IDC. Nevertheless, the number of sold NAS devices decreased in the first quarter of 2015 compared to the same period in the previous year.
From January till April this year 6.7 million personal and entry level NAS systems were sold. A personal NAS offers, according to IDC's description, space for 1 or 2 HDDs, while an entry level NAS can house 3 to 12 HDDs. In the personal NAS segment mainly HDD manufacturers have grown their market share and dominate the market with a share 0f 73%. Of those it's mainly NAS devices with a capacity range of 1TB -3TB that, with a market share of 70.3%, are most popular under personal NAS buyers.
"The affordability of personal storage and the facility to store data without any privacy/data breach or bandwidth concerns that end users encounter with some public cloud make personal storage devices the main source for consumers to store and manage their data," according to Jimena Sisa, senior research analyst, European storage research, IDC.
