The growing demand from enterprises for advanced, efficient, and secure data storage devices and solutions that deliver insightful analytics should help data storage companies to grow substantially. Therefore, prominent data storage stocks NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) and Western Digital (WDC) should benefit. But which of these stocks is a better buy now? Read more to find out.NetApp, Inc. (NTAP) in Sunnyvale, Calif., and Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) in San Jose, Calif., are two prominent players in the computer hardware industry. NTAP offers storage solutions and cloud services to manage and share data on-premises and in private and public clouds worldwide. Its storage solutions include specialized hardware, software, and services that provide storage management for open network environments. In comparison, WDC develops, manufactures, and sells data storage devices and solutions, mainly hard-disk drives (HDDs) and solid-state drives (SDDs), and serves OEMs, distributors, resellers, and retailers worldwide.
The growing demand for data storage devices and solutions from enterprises to make better decisions and deliver insightful analytics has helped companies that offer data storage solutions to generate significant revenues over the past year. The continued adoption of hybrid working models and rising cybersecurity threats should further drive the industry’s growth. The global Data Storage market is expected to grow at a 7.1% CAGR to $76.22 billion by 2026. Therefore, NTAP and WDC should benefit substantially.
But, while WDC’s shares have declined 16.6% in price over the past three months, NTAP has surged 13.2%. NTAP is also a clear winner with 105.3% gains versus WDC’s 43.6% returns over the past year. But which of these stocks is a better pick now? Let’s find out.