Gurugram/New Delhi, July 01, 2026: India’s HDD storage market is witnessing renewed momentum, driven by growing demand for high-capacity, cost-efficient storage across consumers, SMBs, and surveillance deployments. According to the latest CMR India Consumer HDD Devices Market Review Report by CyberMedia Research (CMR), External HDD shipments grew 42% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ), while Surveillance HDD shipments surged 31% QoQ in Q1 2026.
According to Mukesh Sharma, Senior Analyst, Industry Intelligence Group (IIG), CyberMedia Research (CMR), “Storage purchasing decisions continue to be shaped by cost efficiency, capacity requirements, and long-term data retention needs. The widening price gap between SSDs and HDDs has reinforced HDDs’ relevance for capacity-centric use cases, supporting demand across both External HDD and Surveillance HDD segments. Growing backup and content creation requirements, coupled with increasing deployment of high-resolution surveillance systems and longer video retention periods, continue to position HDDs as the preferred solution for economical, high-capacity storage.”
HDD Drives Market Highlights Q1 2026
External HDD Market: 2TB drives dominated the segment, capturing 48% of total shipments.
- Western Digital solidified its leadership in the External HDD market, capturing a dominant 49% market share in terms of bit shipments.
- Seagate followed as the second-largest player with a 42% market share in terms of bit shipments.
Surveillance HDD Market: 2TB and 4TB drives dominated the segment, together accounting for 60% of demand.
- Seagate led the market with an impressive 53% market share in terms of bit shipments.
- Western Digital followed with a 36% market share.
Future Outlook
CMR expects India’s HDD market to maintain steady growth through CY2026, supported by rising data creation, AI-enabled surveillance deployments, and increasing long-term storage requirements. External HDD shipments are projected to grow 18–22% YoY, while Surveillance HDD shipments are expected to grow 12–15% YoY during CY2026.
“India’s storage market is entering a phase where data intensity, surveillance expansion, and long-term retention requirements are becoming structural demand drivers. While SSDs continue to scale across performance-centric workloads, HDDs remain strategically critical for high-capacity, cost-efficient storage deployments across enterprise, surveillance, SMB, and consumer environments,” added Preet Kaur, Analyst, Industry Intelligence Group (IIG), CyberMedia Research (CMR).
Notes for Editors
- Cyber Media Research (CMR) is a pioneering market intelligence and consulting firm that runs a comprehensive quarterly market update on the India Consumer Storage market. CMR’s India Quarterly Hard Drives Market Review covers External HDD, NAS, Surveillance HDD sold via distributors and retail outlets. The report accounts for ‘legal’ shipments, but does not include bundled or ‘grey’ market shipments or units brought from abroad by individuals as a part of personal baggage.
- CMR uses the term “shipments” to describe the number of hard drive devices leaving the factory premises for OEM sales or stocking by distributors and retailers. For the convenience of media, the term ‘shipment’ is sometimes replaced by “sales” in the press release, but this reflects the market size in terms of units of hard drive devices and not their absolute value.
