IDC's Q2 2026 storage tracker shows external enterprise storage revenue up 33.6 percent to 10.3 billion dollars, but much of the growth is price, not capacity, and IDC does not expect component relief before 2028.
What was announced
- External OEM enterprise storage systems revenue reached 10.3 billion dollars in Q2 2026, up 33.6 percent year on year, the second highest quarter in the tracker's history after Q4 2025.
- Growth accelerated from 28.7 percent in Q1 2026 and compares with just 3.9 percent growth for full year 2025. First half 2026 revenue was 29.6 billion dollars, up 28.2 percent.
- All-flash arrays took 5.4 billion dollars, up 42.9 percent, for 52.1 percent of revenue. Hybrid flash grew 25.5 percent to 3.9 billion dollars and all-HDD arrays grew 22.6 percent to 1.1 billion dollars.
- High-end systems above 250,000 dollars ASP grew 90.6 percent to 2.7 billion dollars, now 26.2 percent of the market, while entry systems under 25,000 dollars fell 14.6 percent to 0.9 billion dollars.
- IDC attributes the rise to buyers pulling purchases forward ahead of component price increases, price rises across all-flash, hybrid and HDD-only systems, and a deferred refresh cycle, with NAND and DRAM capacity prioritised for higher margin memory products and no meaningful relief expected before 2028.
- Dell led with 23.8 percent share and 42.5 percent growth, ahead of Huawei at 11.3 percent, NetApp at 9.6 percent and HPE at 6.8 percent.
- Western Europe was the second largest region at 1.9 billion dollars, up 42.8 percent year on year.
- The same IDC trackers put the worldwide server market at a record 166.3 billion dollars in Q2 2026, up 52.0 percent.
The ETON view
Read the split rather than the headline. Entry arrays shrinking 14.6 percent while high-end systems grow 90.6 percent is not a demand story, it is a budget story: smaller buyers are being priced out of the same flash that AI projects are absorbing at the top. IDC is explicit that customers are buying less capacity for more money.
If you are sourcing storage for hosting platforms, inference clusters or a deferred refresh, the practical response is to stop treating array capacity as a single purchase. Split hot and cold tiers, buy the flash you genuinely need at the front and take capacity behind it from drives, enclosures and previous-generation arrays where the price per terabyte has not moved with the NAND cycle. That is where we can normally hold a UK price and a lead time while new-build quotes drift.
With no component relief expected before 2028, pre-buying known-good drives and caddies against a planned expansion is now a defensible decision rather than a hoarding one. We can quote current availability on specific part numbers, take working kit back on buyback when you tier down, and keep the vendor choice open so a price rise from one OEM does not dictate your roadmap.
Related infrastructure
Category: Storage · Vendor: Dell, NetApp, HPE, Huawei · Technology: All-flash arrays, hybrid flash, NAND supply · Last verified: 22 Sep 2026 · ~2 min read
Sourcing this kind of infrastructure? Talk to ETON about availability, lead time and pricing.
