The already mature worldwide disk storage systems market continues to be transformed, as estimates predict stellar growth in demand during the next five years.

Analyst firm IDC said that the sector will enjoy a compound annual growth rate nearing 60 per cent between 2006 and 2011.

"Storage system OEMs will be thrilled with new opportunities generated by explosive growth in fixed content and data protection initiatives, by user concerns about data management and regulatory compliance, and by demand for more efficient energy consumption and data reduction tools," said Natalya Yezhkova, research manager for IDC's storage systems research.

Dave Reinsel, programme director for storage research at IDC, added: "The challenge for industry participants will be to provide the right features at the right costs so that end-user requirements are at least met, if not exceeded.

"Near-term, technology transitions will consume storage purchasing decisions. Long-term, the focus will shift to cost and storage efficiencies."

IDC forecasts that double-digit growth in capacity shipments will be balanced by dropping prices per gigabyte of storage. As a result, revenue growth will slow down year over year, reaching $31bn in 2011.

Terabyte shipments of capacity-optimised storage systems will overpass performance-optimised systems and account for nearly two-thirds of overall capacity shipped in 2011, according to IDC.

The analyst firm expects that ISCSI SAN will remain the fastest growing interconnect segment of the market, representing a quarter of the external disk storage systems market revenue in 2011.