Personal and Entry-level Storage Market - Global Industry Size, Share, Trends, Opportunity, and Forecast, 2021-2031

The Global Personal and Entry-level Storage Market is projected to expand from USD 61.65 Billion in 2025 to USD 204.18 Billion by 2031, achieving a CAGR of 22.09%. This market segment covers direct-attached devices, including external hard drives, portable solid-state drives, and flash memory units, which are used for individual data mobility and preservation. The sector is primarily driven by the massive accumulation of high-resolution digital content, creating a need for significant local capacity among both consumers and professionals. Additionally, the ongoing threat of cyberattacks highlights the importance of offline backups as a secure alternative to network-dependent storage, sustaining demand for physical hardware despite the availability of online solutions.

However, the market faces a significant challenge from cloud-based storage services, which offer seamless synchronization and multi-device access without the need for hardware maintenance. Despite this competition, the industry remains resilient due to cost benefits and specific capacity requirements. According to the Japan HDD Association, global hard disk drive shipments were expected to reach approximately 124 million units in 2024. This statistic underscores the continued reliance on physical storage media for managing substantial data volumes within the personal and entry-level sectors.

Market Drivers

The rapid growth of the Global Gaming and Esports Sector serves as a major catalyst for the personal storage market, driven by modern game titles that require higher capacities and faster retrieval speeds. With AAA game installations often exceeding 100GB and frequent patches increasing data loads, gamers need substantial local storage to minimize load times and maintain performance. This necessitates a shift from lower-capacity legacy drives to multi-terabyte solutions capable of supporting extensive digital libraries. Data from Valve Corporation’s 'Steam Hardware & Software Survey: February 2024' confirms this trend, reporting a 4.59 percent increase in users with storage capacities exceeding 1 TB, linking the thriving gaming ecosystem directly to the demand for expanded local hardware.

Simultaneously, the accelerated transition from HDDs to advanced SSD technologies is reshaping entry-level storage, as consumers increasingly prefer the durability and speed of Solid State Drives for content creation and hybrid work. Manufacturers are responding by increasing flash memory density to enhance accessibility to high-performance storage. In its 'Fiscal Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2024 Financial Results' released in July 2024, Western Digital noted that revenue growth in its Client segment was largely driven by increased flash bit shipments, signaling widespread SSD adoption. Meanwhile, the broader industry remains robust, with Seagate Technology reporting total fiscal year revenue of $6.55 billion in 2024, reflecting the sector's enduring financial scale.

Market Challenges

Intense competition from cloud-based storage services poses a significant barrier to the growth of the global personal and entry-level storage market. Consumers increasingly prioritize the convenience of multi-device accessibility and seamless synchronization offered by digital platforms over the manual management associated with physical hardware. This shift in preference has extended the replacement cycle for external hard drives and flash memory units, as everyday users find their storage needs adequately met by subscription-based online solutions without the burden of physical preservation or maintenance.

Consequently, unit sales in the consumer segment are dampening, as the exponential growth of digital content is increasingly absorbed by cloud infrastructure rather than driving local hardware purchases. This trend is supported by industry data showing a divergence between cloud and client storage demand. According to IDEMA, global hard disk drive shipments in the first quarter of 2024 reached approximately 29.7 million units, a figure driven primarily by high-capacity enterprise drives for cloud environments rather than personal legacy applications, illustrating how cloud dominance is absorbing data volume growth.

Market Trends

Personal storage devices are increasingly integrating advanced security features, such as biometric authentication and built-in AES 256-bit hardware encryption, to address growing data privacy concerns. These developments are critical for professionals who need secure, offline methods to transport sensitive information without exposing it to network vulnerabilities. Such mechanisms ensure data integrity during transit by isolating it from host system compromises. According to Apricorn’s '2025 Annual Survey of IT Security Decision Makers' published in May 2025, encryption adoption reached 94% among surveyed organizations, confirming the market's decisive shift toward mandated hardware-level security for mobile data.

Additionally, market players are prioritizing sustainability by engineering energy-efficient drives and manufacturing storage enclosures from recycled materials to appeal to environmentally conscious consumers. This transition involves optimizing manufacturing processes to reduce waste and integrating post-consumer recycled plastics into product designs. By aligning production lifecycles with global environmental standards, manufacturers are working to lower the ecological impact of electronic waste. In its 'Sustainable Datasphere: FY2024 ESG Performance Report' from May 2025, Seagate Technology reported a 63% decrease in operations emissions intensity, demonstrating the significant impact of renewable energy adoption within the storage hardware sector.

Key Players Profiled in the Personal and Entry-level Storage Market

• Microsoft Corporation
• Alphabet Inc.
• Apple Inc.
• Autoliv, Inc.
• Cisco Systems Inc.
• IBM Corporation
• Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company
• Amazon.com, Inc.
• Dell Inc.

Report Scope

In this report, the Global Personal and Entry level Storage Market has been segmented into the following categories:

Personal and Entry level Storage Market, by Product Type:

• Solid-State Drives
• Cloud-Based Drives
• Hard Disk Drives
• Recordable Discs

Personal and Entry level Storage Market, by Technology:

• Directly Attached Storage
• Network-Attached Storage
• Cloud Storage Technology
• Signal Attached SCSI
• Others

Personal and Entry level Storage Market, by End User:

• Media & Entertainment
• Financial Services
• Public Sector
• Health Care Industry
• Others

Personal and Entry level Storage Market, by Region:

• North America
• Europe
• Asia-Pacific
• South America
• Middle East & Africa

Competitive Landscape

Company Profiles: Detailed analysis of the major companies present in the Global Personal and Entry level Storage Market.

Available Customization

The analyst offers customization according to your specific needs. The following customization options are available for the report:

• Detailed analysis and profiling of additional market players (up to five).

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