This IDC study presents an updated look at the hard disk drive (HDD) market through 2012. It is valid as of May 2008, and it provides a forecast of HDD demand both by standard HDD industry form factors and for the following HDD consumption segments: portable PCs, desktop PCs, enterprise storage systems, servers, personal storage devices (aka external hard drives), and various consumer electronics (CE) products in a variety of CE markets. For comparison purposes, the tables in this document also include historical figures for 2004–2007.

"The world's prodigious appetite for digital storage capacity continues to fuel hard disk drive demand and revenue. The HDD industry will likely post consecutive years of record-breaking shipments and revenue from 2007 to 2012. What about the threat of solid state drives? Disk drive OEMs are very aware of the different competing storage technologies that exist today and will exist in the future. They will rightly shrug off these competing technologies for a later day, choosing instead to capitalize on the healthy and profitable opportunities that lie ahead in the hard disk drive industry." — John Rydning, IDC research director, Hard Disk Drives