Our fifth annual Products of the Year awards honor 15 new or improved storage products that had the most significant impact in 2006.

If, generally speaking, 2005 was the year of new storage product introductions, 2006 might be called "the year of upgrades," as most manufacturers scrambled to refine and improve their storage offerings. But don't think for a moment that 2006 was boring. It's not easy to improve products so that they're more interoperable, behave better in the data center, are easier to manage and, in many instances, do more and cost less than previous versions. For the editors of Storage magazine and SearchStorage.com, as well as an expert judging panel of analysts, consultants and users, it was a challenge to sort through all of the supremely qualified nominations to select this year's winners.