Click for full-sized view.

EMC is continuing to pull away from the storage vendor pack with third-quarter storage revenue growth far exceeding the industry as a whole and exceeding the growth of all its peers save one, according to a new IDC report.

The world's external disk storage systems revenue rose 3.3 percent in the third quarter compared to last year's storage system revenue to reach $5.9 billion, Framingham, Mass.-based analyst firm IDC said on Friday.

That compares to a 3.7 percent growth in the total disk storage systems market to $7.9 billion, IDC said.

[Related: Market-Topping Revenue Growth Lets EMC Extend Storage Lead: IDC]

The total disk storage systems market combines the external disk storage systems market plus disk storage sold with servers.

EMC, which does not have a server business, was the leader in both categories thanks to total third-quarter 2012 storage system revenue of $1.7 billion. That was up 8.7 percent over last year's revenue of $1.6 billion, IDC said.

On the eternal disk storage systems side, NetApp was No. 2 with third calendar quarter 2012 revenue of $706 million. That was up a scant 0.9 percent from last year's $700 million, IDC said.

Coming in third was IBM, which saw its third quarter revenue fall 5.0 percent to $698 million. It was followed by Hitachi and Hewlett-Packard, which tied for fourth place with $575 million. The tie between Hitachi and HP was significant given that Hitachi's revenue, which also includes that of Hitachi Data Systems, rose 13.8 percent over last year while HP's revenue fell 11.0 percent, IDC said.

The "other" storage vendors saw their total external disk storage systems revenue grow 5.4 percent to $1.6 billion, beating the overall market growth rate of 3.3 percent.

On the total disk storage systems revenue side, EMC was No. 1 followed by HP, which saw its third-quarter sales slip 1.4 percent from last year to $1.4 billion.

IBM was third, with sales of $1.1 billion, down 4.0 percent.

NEXT: Dell Climbs The Storage Market Share Chart

Dell, however, did very well, with total disk storage systems revenue rising 4.0 percent to $912 million. Dell last month reported a 16 percent drop in total storage revenue over last year due to Dell's decision to end its deal to resell EMC storage, but said storage based on its own intellectual property fell 3 percent year-over-year. However, Dell also reported a 4.0 percent rise in server sales over last year, which likely dragged along a strong storage attach rate to give it an overall storage growth of 4.0 percent.

As a result, Dell saw a slight increase in market share to 11.6 percent, up from 11.5 percent last year.

NetApp was the No. 5 vendor.

Meanwhile, the "other" vendors enjoyed an 8.9 percent growth in storage revenue to $2.0 billion, IDC reported.

IDC also reported that sales of open SAN products, which includes iSCSI storage, rose 4.4 percent over last year, with EMC the leading vendor thanks to a 29.8-percent market share, followed by IBM at 14.0 percent, Hitachi at 12.2 percent and HP at 11.8 percent.

For iSCSI-only sales, which rose 6.9 percent over last year, Dell was the leader with a 28.3-percent market share followed by EMC at 19.8 percent and NetApp at 13.3 percent.

On the NAS side, where revenue rose 5.7 percent over last year, EMC led with a 43.6-percent market share followed by NetApp at 29.4 percent.

PUBLISHED DEC. 7, 2012