Small and medium businesses show a growing interest in the storage systems used by larger companies, and the share of total storage technology spending is set to increase in 2006 according to IDC.

Laura DuBois, research director for storage software at IDC, added: "Medium-sized firms have the same requirements as larger firms for the improved backup and recovery that disk-based data protection schemas can deliver, and are perhaps more open to using exclusively disk in their protection processes."

IDC's study also noted that, while SMBs rely on internal disks to meet their storage needs, such firms will increase their storage area network capacity in the next 12 months.

Small businesses devote the largest share of disk storage to email and digital content. In contrast, medium-sized firms devote the largest share of their disk storage to backup, recovery and data-intensive applications.