Xyratex Is World’s No. 1 Storage OEM Supplier: IDC

IT researcher IDC announced Dec. 21 that it has crowned U.K.-based Xyratex as the world’s champion supplier of disk storage systems to original equipment manufacturers.
The statistics that support this announcement, however, are somewhat dated; the IDC supplier ranking is based on 2009 revenue. It also reports that Xyratex accomplished this while increasing its market share from 25 percent to nearly 30 percent in that single year.
Xyratex also was the top disk storage system supplier in 2008, IDC said.
Xyratex makes high-capacity, high-speed data storage subsystems that support a range of communication technologies and performance specifications. These include RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) and SBOD (Switched Bunch of Disks).
The company also builds storage infrastructure, such as automated HDD test solutions, servo track writing technology and precision cleaning systems for high-volume manufacturing environments.
In its review of the worldwide disk storage market, IDC analyzed the market share data of the top 32 disk storage system vendors as well as major storage system OEM suppliers, said Natalya Yezhkova, research director of Storage Systems at IDC.
In the assessment of OEM revenues for those 32 suppliers, Xyratex ranked first with 29.8 percent of the OEM disk storage systems market. Xyratex supplied four of the top five storage systems vendors in 2009, shipping more than 1.5 exabytes of storage through its customer base.
The top five disk storage vendors, according to quarterly IDC and Gartner market reports, are EMC, IBM, NetApp, Hewlett-Packard and Dell, in that order.
“Xyratex’s business model and commitment to its customers provide a compelling solution to OEM suppliers. OEMs are able to focus on their core competencies while relying on Xyratex’s expertise in delivering hardware platform for their storage solutions,” Yezhkova said.
“Storage capacity is forecast to grow at 50 percent through 2014, driven by demand for enterprise storage systems. This demand will create steady opportunity for Xyratex to grow its business with OEM customers and to increase its footprint in the industry.”
You say you’ve never heard of Xyratex? This is not surprising because the Havant, England-based company does not market a branded product.
Xyratex has more than 25 years of experience in research and development relating to disk drives, storage systems and high-speed communication protocols.
The company was launched in 1994 in a management buyout from IBM. Xyratex, whose U.S. headquarters is in Fremont, Calif., has an established a global base with R&D and operational facilities in Europe, the United States and Southeast Asia.