EMC also led in the open SAN market, which includes all varieties of SANs except mainframe systems. The company held 25.7 percent of that market, followed by IBM with 16.7 percent and HP with 13.4 percent, according to IDC.

Total revenue from all open SANs rose 14.3 percent year over year. Fibre Channel gear, the traditional SAN equipment that tends to be more expensive than other types, saw a rebound, Conner said.

"With IT budgets starting to loosen up ... we're seeing more Fibre Channel being sold," Conner said.

Sales of iSCSI SANs also grew strongly, up 21.0 percent by revenue. Dell led that market with 32.1 percent of total revenue, followed by EMC and HP.

NAS revenue increased 16.9 percent from a year earlier, and EMC dominated this market with 47.2 percent of revenue. NetApp came in second at 30.7 percent.