Sales of disk storage systems jumped in the third quarter, according to figures released by research firms IDC and Gartner.

Worldwide revenue for external disk storage systems grew 19 percent year over year to a quarterly total of just less than $5.2 billion, IDC said Friday. Gartner put the total for external controller-based disk storage sales at $4.6 billion--a rise of 16 percent--in its report Friday. The third quarter of 2009 saw a decline in storage system sales, giving some bounce to the size of this year's revenue increases. Even so, the rises do reflect a burst of investment by companies in storage, the research firms said.

"Users are still making up for their reduced storage spending in 2009 as the third quarter recorded the fourth-highest revenues in a single quarter for external disk storage systems," Liz Conner, a senior storage analyst at IDC, said in a statement.

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