Software-Defined Storage Market – Global Industry Size, Share, Trends, Opportunity, and Forecast Segmented by Type (Block, File, Object, Hyper-Converged Infrastructure), By Size of Enterprise (Small and Medium Enterprise, Large Enterprise), By End-user Industries (BFSI, Telecom and IT, Government, Others), By Region & Competition. 2021-2031F

Forecast Period	2027-2031
Market Size (2025)	USD 41.07 Billion
CAGR (2026-2031)	25.56%
Fastest Growing Segment	Large Enterprise
Largest Market	Asia Pacific
Market Size (2031)	USD 160.93 Billion

Market Overview

The Global Software-Defined Storage Market will grow from USD 41.07 Billion in 2025 to USD 160.93 Billion by 2031 at a 25.56% CAGR. The Global Software-Defined Storage (SDS) Market is defined by an architectural approach that separates storage management software from the underlying hardware, enabling organizations to allocate resources flexibly across vendor-agnostic infrastructure. The primary drivers propelling this market include the exponential growth of enterprise data, the necessity for scalable operational models, and the cost efficiencies gained by shifting from capital-intensive hardware to adaptable software-centric solutions. This demand is further intensified by the proliferation of data-intensive workloads. According to CompTIA, in 2024, 62% of organizations intended to step up their adoption of artificial intelligence, a trend that necessitates the high-performance and flexible capacity that SDS architectures provide.

However, the market faces a significant challenge regarding the complexity of implementation and a persistent shortage of qualified technical professionals capable of managing these environments. The integration of SDS with legacy systems often requires specialized expertise that is currently scarce, creating a bottleneck for widespread deployment. This skills deficit directly impedes the ability of enterprises to fully leverage SDS benefits. According to the Association for Intelligent Information Management, in 2024, 33% of respondents cited a lack of skilled personnel as a key obstacle to effectively leveraging advanced information technologies, highlighting the operational difficulties that can stall market expansion.

Key Market Drivers

Exponential growth in unstructured data is a primary force driving the Global Software-Defined Storage Market, as enterprises grapple with surging volumes of files and object data generated by artificial intelligence, video surveillance, and IoT devices. Unlike traditional monolithic storage systems, software-defined storage (SDS) offers the scalability required to manage these vast datasets by decoupling storage software from proprietary hardware. This architecture allows organizations to expand capacity on demand without the prohibitively high costs of legacy infrastructure. The scale of this data accumulation is significant; according to Komprise, June 2024, in the '2024 State of Unstructured Data Management' report, almost half of surveyed enterprises were storing more than 5 petabytes of unstructured data, necessitating the robust management capabilities that SDS provides.

Concurrently, the accelerated adoption of hybrid and multi-cloud architectures is reshaping investment strategies, compelling businesses to seek storage solutions that offer seamless data mobility across diverse environments. SDS platforms are essential in this landscape, serving as a unifying layer that abstracts underlying resources to ensure consistent policy enforcement and data availability between on-premises data centers and public clouds. This shift towards flexible infrastructure is rapidly gaining momentum. According to Nutanix, March 2024, in the 'Enterprise Cloud Index' report, the use of hybrid multicloud models is projected to double over the next one to three years. This trend underpins a broader surge in storage requirements, as evidenced by the fact that according to Wasabi Technologies, in 2024, 93% of organizations planned to increase their public cloud storage capacity to support modern workloads.

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Key Market Challenges

The complexity of implementation combined with a scarcity of qualified technical professionals creates a substantial bottleneck for the Global Software-Defined Storage Market. As organizations attempt to transition from legacy hardware to software-centric architectures, they require personnel with advanced proficiency in virtualization, cloud orchestration, and automated infrastructure management. However, the current labor market lacks a sufficient supply of individuals possessing these specialized skill sets. This deficit forces enterprises to delay or scale back their migration plans, as they cannot guarantee the operational stability required for critical data workloads without a competent workforce to manage the intricate integration process.

This shortage of expertise directly impacts market momentum by preventing the optimization of storage resources. According to ISACA, in 2024, 59% of business technology professionals reported that their technical teams were significantly understaffed, impeding their ability to manage digital information systems effectively. This lack of available talent means that even if organizations invest in software-defined storage solutions, they struggle to fully utilize the technology's capabilities due to a lack of human capital. Consequently, the gap between the demand for flexible storage and the operational capability to execute it remains wide, slowing the overall adoption rate across the industry.

Key Market Trends

The Rapid Adoption of Container-Native Storage for Kubernetes Environments is fundamentally reshaping the market as organizations move beyond stateless microservices to deploying complex, data-rich applications on container platforms. Unlike traditional storage provisioned at the infrastructure level, container-native storage is software-defined and granular, allowing storage volumes to be dynamically provisioned, protected, and managed effectively within the Kubernetes control plane itself. This shift is essential for supporting modern databases and analytics pipelines that require persistent storage with high portability. This trend is evidenced by the increasing reliance on cloud-native architectures for mission-critical data; according to Pure Storage, June 2024, in 'The Voice of Kubernetes Experts Report 2024', 98% of respondents were running data-intensive workloads on cloud-native platforms, driving the necessity for the robust data services that software-defined architectures provide.

Simultaneously, the Expansion of Software-Defined Storage to Network Edge Locations is gaining momentum as enterprises seek to process data closer to the point of creation to minimize latency and bandwidth costs. Traditional monolithic storage arrays are often too bulky and rigid for space-constrained edge environments, whereas software-defined solutions can run on diverse, general-purpose hardware, making them ideal for distributed deployments in retail, manufacturing, and telecommunications. This decentralization of infrastructure is becoming a critical strategic priority for modernizing IT operations. According to Dell Technologies, January 2024, in the 'Navigating the Edge Computing Revolution' article, 41% of IT decision makers identified edge computing as the cornerstone of their IT strategy, underscoring the growing market demand for flexible storage solutions capable of operating efficiently outside centralized data centers.

Segmental Insights

The Large Enterprise segment is projected to experience the fastest growth in the Global Software-Defined Storage Market, driven by the exponential surge in data volumes across extensive corporate networks. These organizations are increasingly transitioning from rigid, hardware-centric systems to flexible software architectures to ensure scalability and operational agility. The rapid adoption is further fueled by the need to manage complex workloads across hybrid cloud environments while strictly adhering to data governance and security compliance mandates. Additionally, substantial IT budgets allow major corporations to invest in these hardware-agnostic solutions to optimize resource utilization and significantly reduce total ownership costs.

Regional Insights

Asia Pacific commands a leading position in the global software-defined storage market due to rapid digital transformation initiatives across major economies like China and India. This dominance is driven by the exponential growth of unstructured data from the telecommunications and manufacturing sectors, necessitating scalable and cost-efficient management architectures. The region is witnessing a significant surge in hyperscale data center establishments to support increasing cloud adoption. Additionally, government regulations emphasizing data sovereignty and localization encourage enterprises to transition from rigid hardware to flexible software-defined storage models, ensuring compliance and operational agility within the region.

Recent Developments

• In November 2025, Hitachi Vantara launched the Virtual Storage Platform One Block High End, a next-generation all-flash NVMe solution designed for mission-critical and artificial intelligence workloads. This release completed the company’s data platform strategy by delivering a unified hybrid cloud storage architecture with integrated resilience and high availability. The new system featured immutable snapshots and automated recovery mechanisms to enhance cybersecurity for enterprise data. By consolidating block, file, and software-defined storage capabilities into a single control plane, the platform aimed to simplify data management and reduce operational complexity for organizations navigating exponential data growth.
• In November 2025, Western Digital showcased a strategic collaboration with PEAK:AIO to demonstrate high-performance software-defined storage solutions for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing environments. During a major industry event, the company highlighted how its NVMe-over-Fabrics architectures integrated with PEAK:AIO’s software to eliminate traditional storage bottlenecks. This partnership focused on optimizing data infrastructure for AI model development by ensuring trusted performance and scalability. The initiative allowed organizations to leverage disaggregated storage architectures, thereby reducing total cost of ownership while maximizing the efficiency of data-intensive workloads in research and enterprise sectors.
• In June 2025, Pure Storage announced a significant expansion of its portfolio with the release of the FlashArray//XL R5 and FlashArray//ST models. The company introduced native object storage capabilities directly on its FlashArray platform, effectively unifying block, file, and object storage services within a single software-defined architecture. This innovation eliminated the need for separate storage silos, enabling consistent performance and simplified management across on-premises and cloud environments. The launch also included the FlashBlade//S R2, which delivered enhanced performance for genomics and artificial intelligence applications, further reinforcing the company’s commitment to flexible, code-based storage management.
• In August 2024, Dell Technologies and Nutanix announced an expanded collaboration to integrate Dell’s PowerFlex software-defined storage with the Nutanix Cloud Platform. This strategic partnership aimed to provide a seamless hybrid cloud experience by combining linearly scalable storage with a premier software stack. The companies introduced the Dell XC Plus appliance and revealed plans to offer customers the ability to scale compute and storage resources independently. This development allowed enterprises to optimize their infrastructure for flexibility and performance while leveraging the management simplicity of the Nutanix environment alongside enterprise-grade storage capabilities.

Key Market Players

• DataCore Software, Inc.
• Dell Technologies Inc.
• Microsoft Corporation
• NetApp, Inc.
• Nutanix, Inc.
• Pure Storage, Inc.
• Red Hat, Inc.
• StarWind Software, Inc.
• IBM Corporation
• Oracle Corporation

By Size of Enterprise	By End-user Industries	By Region
Small and Medium Enterprise Large Enterprise	BFSI Telecom and IT Government Others	North America Europe Asia Pacific South America Middle East & Africa

Report Scope:

In this report, the Global Software-Defined Storage Market has been segmented into the following categories, in addition to the industry trends which have also been detailed below:

• Software-Defined Storage Market, By Size of Enterprise:

• Small and Medium Enterprise
• Large Enterprise

• Software-Defined Storage Market, By End-user Industries:

• BFSI
• Telecom and IT
• Government
• Others

• Software-Defined Storage Market, By Region:

• North America
• United States
• Canada
• Mexico
• Europe
• France
• United Kingdom
• Italy
• Germany
• Spain
• Asia Pacific
• China
• India
• Japan
• Australia
• South Korea
• South America
• Brazil
• Argentina
• Colombia
• Middle East & Africa
• South Africa
• Saudi Arabia
• UAE