United Arab Emirates Data Center Storage Market Size & Share Analysis - Growth Trends & Forecasts (2025 - 2030)

South Africa Data Center Storage Market is Segmented by Storage Technology (Network-Attached Storage, Storage Area Network, and More), Storage Type(Traditional HDD Arrays and More), Data Center Type (Colocation Facilities and More), End User (IT and Telecommunication, BFSI and More), Form Factor (Rack-Mounted and More), Interface(SAS/ SATA, Nvme, Fibre Channel and ISCSI). The Market Forecasts are Provided in Terms of Value (USD).

United Arab Emirates Data Center Storage Market Size and Share

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United Arab Emirates Data Center Storage Market Analysis by Mordor Intelligence

The UAE data center storage market size is expected to be valued at USD 505.91 million in 2025 and is forecast to advance to USD 923.88 million by 2030, registering a 12.8% CAGR. This growth trajectory confirms the country’s status as a regional digital hub that connects Asia, Europe, and Africa, while reinforcing the strategic goal of national data sovereignty set out in UAE Vision 2071 u.ae. Government-led diversification away from hydrocarbons, combined with rising enterprise investments in cloud, analytics, and artificial intelligence workloads, amplifies demand for dependable, high-performance storage capacity. Cooling-efficient facilities, strong subsea cable connectivity, and well-defined free-zone incentives continue to attract global hyperscalers that need local residency for regulated data categories. At the same time, emerging edge sites in industrial zones help oil and gas operators process sensor data closer to the point of generation, reducing latency and backhaul costs. The net effect is a layered storage demand curve that ranges from metro-scale colocation halls to compact, ruggedized edge appliances—each adding momentum to the UAE data center storage market.

Key Report Takeaways

  • By storage technology, Storage Area Network held 36.1% of UAE data center storage market share in 2024, whereas Network Attached Storage is projected to grow at a 12.9% CAGR through 2030. 
  • By storage type, traditional HDD arrays accounted for 42.3% of the UAE data center storage market size in 2024, while all-flash arrays are on track for a 14.2% CAGR to 2030. 
  • By data center type, colocation facilities led with 45.6% revenue share of the UAE data center storage market in 2024; hyperscalers and cloud service providers are forecast to grow the fastest at 14.5% CAGR. 
  • By end user, the IT and telecommunications segment captured 24.5% share of the UAE data center storage market size in 2024, and BFSI is expected to expand at a 13.1% CAGR through 2030. 
  • By form factor, rack-mounted systems dominated with 58.3% share in 2024, while composable storage shows an 11.7% CAGR outlook. 
  • By interface, NVMe is the fastest-rising protocol with a 14.8% CAGR to 2030, although SAS/SATA connections still hold 56.2% share.

Segment Analysis

By Storage Technology: NAS Ascends While SAN Retains Core Stronghold

SAN systems commanded 36.1% UAE data center storage market share in 2024, owing to entrenched installations in banking and federal agencies that demand ultra-low latency and redundant pathways. NAS, however, posts the highest growth curve at 12.9% CAGR through 2030. Many UAE enterprises prefer Ethernet-based NAS because it sidesteps the scarcity of Fibre Channel expertise. NVMe-over-TCP upgrades now allow NAS to emulate SAN-like responsiveness, encouraging IT teams to migrate mission-critical volumes without overhauling entire fabrics. Distributed file protocols also support cloud bursting, aligning with hybrid goals prevalent across the UAE data center storage industry. Direct-attached storage remains indispensable at remote oil-field and utilities sites where WAN links can be intermittent, ensuring real-time processing despite sporadic connectivity. Tape and object systems complete the tier for archival compliance, especially among Islamic finance institutions that mandate immutable storage.

SAN’s resilience originates from historical capex already sunk into Fibre Channel switches and host bus adapters. Nonetheless, suppliers now bundle SAN controllers capable of presenting block and file services simultaneously, giving customers phased migration routes toward flexible NAS estates. Vendors that articulate smooth roadmaps without forklift upgrades are well-positioned to grow wallet share inside the UAE data center storage market.

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Note: Segment shares of all individual segments available upon report purchase

By Storage Type: Flash Momentum Gains Against HDD Persistence

Traditional hard-disk arrays held 42.3% of UAE data center storage market size in 2024, a testament to their cost-per-terabyte advantage for seldom-accessed datasets. All-flash arrays lead the growth ranking at 14.2% CAGR to 2030, driven by AI inference, real-time analytics, and high-frequency trading tasks. Flash’s power draw is lower than disk, trimming cooling bills by roughly 30%, a welcome relief in desert conditions. Although purchase prices remain higher, falling NAND costs narrow the gap yearly. Hybrid arrays that integrate SSD tiers with bulk SATA drives offer a transitional platform, automating cold-data demotion and keeping capex in check. Such balance resonates with procurement teams mandated to minimize total cost of ownership while chasing performance SLAs, cementing hybrid arrays as a bridge technology across the UAE data center storage market.

By Data Center Type: Colocation Stability Meets Hyperscaler Velocity

Colocation halls delivered 45.6% UAE data center storage market share in 2024, favored by enterprises that want physical control but outsource facility management. Hyperscaler and cloud-service-provider footprints, although smaller, are growing at a 14.5% CAGR, accelerated by regional expansion plans from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Alibaba Cloud. These hyperscalers cater to multi-national clients that must satisfy residence rules yet interface with global workloads. Government departments, BFSI, and healthcare agencies continue to mix strategies, blending on-premises equipment in regulated domains with leased capacity for burstable analytics. Edge and micro-data centers emerge in petrochemical corridors, where ruggedized racks withstand heat and vibration. Each model feeds incremental demand into the UAE data center storage market.

United Arab Emirates Data Center Storage Market
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Note: Segment shares of all individual segments available upon report purchase

By End User: BFSI Surges Ahead of Telecommunications Anchor

IT and telecommunications players held 24.5% share in 2024, underpinned by network modernization and 5G backhaul requirements. Banking, financial services, and insurance sectors will grow the quickest at 13.1% CAGR. Digital-only banks, Sharia-compliant products, and cross-border payments engines all require persistent, low-latency storage that supports encryption and tamper-proof logging. Government smart-city dashboards, public-sector e-services, and national ID databases generate mixed workloads that straddle transactional and analytical demands. Medical tourism initiatives boost imaging and electronic health records, widening the technology footprint in hospitals. Manufacturing adds steady though smaller increments as factories integrate Industry 4.0 sensors. Collectively, these diverse verticals fortify the UAE data center storage market.

By Form Factor: Composable Rises Beside Rack-Mounted Mainstay

Rack-mounted platforms represented 58.3% UAE data center storage market share in 2024 because they fit existing cabinets and airflow patterns. Disaggregated or composable architectures, where storage pools can be dynamically carved and reassembled, are tracking 11.7% CAGR. They appeal to cloud-native developers who want API-driven infrastructure that scales granularly. Blade and modular enclosures occupy high-density colocation suites where square-meter pricing in central Dubai is premium. Meanwhile, hyperconverged appliances blur form-factor boundaries by embedding storage and compute in the same chassis, simplifying operations for mid-tier enterprises eager to consolidate vendors. These overlapping trends create a diversified equipment mix within the UAE data center storage market.

United Arab Emirates  Data Center Storage Market
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Note: Segment shares of all individual segments available upon report purchase

By Interface: NVMe Fast-Tracks Modern Workloads

SAS/SATA held 56.2% share in 2024 thanks to existing disk arrays and moderate-performance SSDs that employ legacy connectors. NVMe protocol adoption is accelerating at a 14.8% CAGR because it harnesses PCIe lanes directly, bypassing SCSI overhead. Financial institutions running real-time fraud detection and AI developers training language models welcome the latency reductions afforded by NVMe. NVMe-over-Fabrics extends these benefits across Ethernet and Fibre Channel networks, letting administrators link flash shelves over distances without sacrificing throughput. Fibre Channel and iSCSI remain relevant for specific backup and archival layers yet face gradual displacement as organizations modernize. Interface upgrades therefore represent a potent catalyst within the UAE data center storage market.

United Arab Emirates  Data Center Storage Marke
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Note: Segment shares of all individual segments available upon report purchase

Geography Analysis

Dubai anchors the UAE data center storage market through its status as a global finance and logistics hub. Colocation campuses in Dubai Internet City and Jebel Ali Free Zone host multinational corporates that require sub-millisecond access to Middle East consumer traffic. Abu Dhabi contributes strategic depth by housing federal ministries, defense research, and sovereign-wealth investment entities that mandate sensitive data residency. Both emirates intertwine submarine cable landing sites with terrestrial fiber loops, ensuring high-availability routes toward Europe, India, and East Asia. Secondary emirates—Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah, and Fujairah—are witnessing new industrial parks where oil, gas, and manufacturing operators deploy localized edge clusters. These remote deployments enlarge the physical scope of the UAE data center storage market and facilitate compliance with provincial environmental regulations.

National data-sovereignty laws dictate that critical health, financial, and personal data stay inside the country, so hyperscalers have invested in in-country availability zones. This requirement crates hybrid topologies in which replicated volumes remain in Emirates-based vaults even when applications burst into overseas instances for compute elasticity. The UAE data center storage market therefore benefits from both inward and outward traffic flows: regional users rely on UAE sites for low-latency services, while international firms leverage Emirates nodes to reach wider Gulf Cooperation Council audiences.

Competitive Landscape

The UAE data center storage market exhibits moderate consolidation. Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and NetApp hold entrenched positions through multi-year enterprise agreements and certified local service centers. Pure Storage and Nutanix disrupt by promoting software-defined architectures that lower lock-in risk and enable granular upgrades. Huawei, Lenovo, and Cisco use joint ventures with domestic system integrators to navigate procurement preferences that favor technology transfer and Emirati talent development. Vendors differentiate through pre-validated reference designs tailored to desert climates, including dust-filtering bezels and elevated thermal thresholds.

Strategic priorities cluster around hybrid models that blend on-premises hardware with cloud tiering. Suppliers bundle toolsets for automatic data classification, encryption, and replication across hyperscale endpoints. Edge-to-core convergence is another battleground; ruggedized flash arrays certified for 55 °C ambient operations cater to oil rigs and solar farms. Meanwhile, white-box entrants pursue niche projects where commodity hardware hosts open-source storage stacks, offering cost-effective choices for SMEs. While price sensitivity influences initial selection, long-term service quality and regulatory compliance seal repeat contracts within the UAE data center storage market.

United Arab Emirates Data Center Storage Industry Leaders

  1. Dell Technologies

  2. Hewlett Packard Enterprise

  3. NetApp

  4. NetApp

  5. NetApp

  6. *Disclaimer: Major Players sorted in no particular order
United Arab Emirates Data Center Storage Market Concentration
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Recent Industry Developments

  • March 2025: Dell Technologies announced a USD 150 million expansion of its regional manufacturing facility in Dubai, focusing on PowerStore and Unity systems optimized for desert operations.
  • February 2025: Pure Storage set up a joint venture in Abu Dhabi with Advanced Technology Investment Company to localize FlashArray assembly and skills development.
  • January 2025: HPE secured a USD 200 million contract with Dubai Municipality to supply edge and core storage for the city’s smart-city program.
  • December 2024: NetApp opened a regional cloud operations center in Dubai Internet City to support hybrid deployments and offer in-country data residency.

Table of Contents for United Arab Emirates Data Center Storage Industry Report

1. INTRODUCTION

  • 1.1 Study Assumptions and Market Definition
  • 1.2 Scope of the Study

2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

4. MARKET LANDSCAPE

  • 4.1 Market Overview
  • 4.2 Market Drivers
    • 4.2.1 Growing digitalization and data-centric applications
    • 4.2.2 Evolution of hybrid flash arrays
    • 4.2.3 Nationwide Smart City/5G roll-outs boosting data volume
    • 4.2.4 Enterprise cloud and hybrid-cloud adoption surge
    • 4.2.5 Stringent UAE data-localization compliance
    • 4.2.6 Edge data-center build-outs in oil and gas corridors
  • 4.3 Market Restraints
    • 4.3.1 Compatibility and optimum-performance issues
    • 4.3.2 High upfront CAPEX and TCO for flash arrays
    • 4.3.3 Shortage of advanced storage-virtualization talent
    • 4.3.4 Cooling-water scarcity inflating OPEX in desert climate
  • 4.4 Supply-Chain Analysis
  • 4.5 Regulatory Landscape
  • 4.6 Technological Outlook
  • 4.7 Porter's Five Forces Analysis
    • 4.7.1 Threat of New Entrants
    • 4.7.2 Bargaining Power of Buyers
    • 4.7.3 Bargaining Power of Suppliers
    • 4.7.4 Threat of Substitutes
    • 4.7.5 Competitive Rivalry
  • 4.8 Assessment of Macroeconomic Factors on the Market

5. MARKET SIZE and GROWTH FORECASTS (VALUE)

  • 5.1 By Storage Technology
    • 5.1.1 Network Attached Storage (NAS)
    • 5.1.2 Storage Area Network (SAN)
    • 5.1.3 Direct Attached Storage (DAS)
    • 5.1.4 Object and Tape Storage
  • 5.2 By Storage Type
    • 5.2.1 Traditional HDD Arrays
    • 5.2.2 All-Flash Arrays (AFA)
    • 5.2.3 Hybrid Storage
  • 5.3 By Data Center Type
    • 5.3.1 Colocation Facilities
    • 5.3.2 Hyperscalers/Cloud Service Providers
    • 5.3.3 Enterprise and Edge
  • 5.4 By End User
    • 5.4.1 IT and Telecommunication
    • 5.4.2 BFSI
    • 5.4.3 Government and Public Sector
    • 5.4.4 Media and Entertainment
    • 5.4.5 Healthcare and Life Sciences
    • 5.4.6 Manufacturing
  • 5.5 By Form Factor
    • 5.5.1 Rack-mounted
    • 5.5.2 Blade and Modular
    • 5.5.3 Disaggregated / Composable
  • 5.6 By Interface
    • 5.6.1 SAS / SATA
    • 5.6.2 NVMe
    • 5.6.3 Fibre Channel and iSCSI

6. COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

  • 6.1 Market Concentration
  • 6.2 Strategic Moves
  • 6.3 Market Share Analysis
  • 6.4 Company Profiles (includes Global level Overview, Market level overview, Core Segments, Financials as available, Strategic Information, Market Rank/Share for key companies, Products and Services, and Recent Developments)
    • 6.4.1 Dell Technologies
    • 6.4.2 Hewlett Packard Enterprise
    • 6.4.3 NetApp
    • 6.4.4 Huawei Technologies
    • 6.4.5 IBM Corporation
    • 6.4.6 Lenovo Group
    • 6.4.7 Pure Storage
    • 6.4.8 Nutanix
    • 6.4.9 Kingston Technology
    • 6.4.10 SMART Modular Technologies
    • 6.4.11 Cisco Systems
    • 6.4.12 Seagate Technology
    • 6.4.13 Western Digital
    • 6.4.14 Hitachi Vantara
    • 6.4.15 Fujitsu
    • 6.4.16 Oracle
    • 6.4.17 Microsoft Azure
    • 6.4.18 Amazon Web Services
    • 6.4.19 Supermicro
    • 6.4.20 Inspur Group

7. MARKET OPPORTUNITIES and FUTURE OUTLOOK

  • 7.1 White-Space and Unmet-Need Assessment
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United Arab Emirates Data Center Storage Market Report Scope

Data center storage encompasses devices, hardware, networking equipment, and software technologies facilitating the storage of data and applications within data center facilities, which are used for storing, managing, retrieving, distributing, and backing up digital information within such facilities.

The UAE data center storage market is segmented by storage technology (network attached storage (NAS), storage area network (SAN), and direct attached storage (DAS)), storage type (traditional storage, all-flash storage, and hybrid storage), and end user (IT & telecommunication, BFSI, government, media & entertainment, and other end users). The market sizes and forecasts are provided in terms of value (USD) for all the above segments.

By Storage Technology Network Attached Storage (NAS)
Storage Area Network (SAN)
Direct Attached Storage (DAS)
Object and Tape Storage
By Storage Type Traditional HDD Arrays
All-Flash Arrays (AFA)
Hybrid Storage
By Data Center Type Colocation Facilities
Hyperscalers/Cloud Service Providers
Enterprise and Edge
By End User IT and Telecommunication
BFSI
Government and Public Sector
Media and Entertainment
Healthcare and Life Sciences
Manufacturing
By Form Factor Rack-mounted
Blade and Modular
Disaggregated / Composable
By Interface SAS / SATA
NVMe
Fibre Channel and iSCSI
By Storage Technology
Network Attached Storage (NAS)
Storage Area Network (SAN)
Direct Attached Storage (DAS)
Object and Tape Storage
By Storage Type
Traditional HDD Arrays
All-Flash Arrays (AFA)
Hybrid Storage
By Data Center Type
Colocation Facilities
Hyperscalers/Cloud Service Providers
Enterprise and Edge
By End User
IT and Telecommunication
BFSI
Government and Public Sector
Media and Entertainment
Healthcare and Life Sciences
Manufacturing
By Form Factor
Rack-mounted
Blade and Modular
Disaggregated / Composable
By Interface
SAS / SATA
NVMe
Fibre Channel and iSCSI
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Key Questions Answered in the Report

What is the current value of the UAE data center storage market?

The UAE data center storage market size is USD 505.91 million in 2025.

How fast is the market expected to grow?

It is projected to register a 12.8% CAGR, taking value to USD 923.88 million by 2030.

Which storage technology is growing the quickest?

Network Attached Storage is the fastest-growing technology segment, advancing at a 12.9% CAGR through 2030.

How do UAE data-localization rules influence storage investment?

Regulations that mandate in-country residency of sensitive data push both local enterprises and global hyperscalers to expand UAE-based storage capacity and adopt hybrid architectures for compliance.

Page last updated on: June 17, 2025

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