Saudi Arabia - October 03, 2023: Toshiba Gulf FZE (TGFZ), a fully owned subsidiary of Toshiba Corporation (Japan) managing the MEA region for storage products and solutions announced the launch of its 'Build Your Own Data Centre' initiative across the Middle East and Africa. This initiative will help its channel partners adapt to a data-driven future while optimizing costs and performance.

In a rapidly evolving technological landscape, companies are faced with the pivotal decision of whether to migrate entirely to the cloud or continue maintaining on-premises data centers. While cloud adoption is on the rise, many enterprises are finding value in balancing the two—a strategy known as a hybrid approach. This initiative will help educate and empower channel partners, including System Integrators, VARs, and VAD, to help their enterprise clients enhance their business-critical enterprise server storage systems and cloud storage capabilities while leveraging high-capacity hard drives.

Santosh Varghese, VP, TGFZ said, ”We want the data storage channel ecosystem to be aware of the kinds of storage backup companies need. We see many companies still using tape as a storage backup option, but a hard drive is the first choice for storage because the cost per GB is still very low compared to SSDs.'

As of 2021, approximately 63% of data storage worldwide still relies on traditional hard disk drives (HDDs). However, the landscape is evolving, and by 2025, SSDs are expected to claim a 16% share of data storage, with NAND making up 10%. Nonetheless, HDDs will continue to hold the majority share at 58%. By 2030, it's projected that HDDs will still account for 48% of total data storage, while SSDs will grow to 29%, and NAND will comprise 12%.

To raise awareness, Toshiba will host a series of events across the MEA, with an aim to equip sales and pre-sales teams belonging with in-depth knowledge about enterprise-level storage and purpose-built hard drives - As an educated channel can better address specific market requirements, such as surveillance, backup, and big data storage.

The 'Build Your Own Data Centre' initiative also seeks to demystify different storage frameworks like RAID and NAS, allowing channel partners to recommend tailored solutions for their clients.

With the global data explosion showing no signs of slowing down, data storage remains a critical concern for businesses - Toshiba, has been dedicated to meeting this demand. In 2018, the company introduced the Helium 14TB enterprise Server HDD, and they have ambitious plans to bring 40+TB enterprise hard drives to market by 2026.

Santosh Varghese added, ”The market has matured quite a bit in the past couple of years in terms of their appreciation of the need to invest in the right kind of storage.'

As businesses worldwide reevaluate their data storage strategies, Toshiba's 'Build Your Own Data Centre' initiative offers valuable insights and cost-effective solutions that align with the evolving storage landscape.