Storage Digest: News from Buffalo Technology, Unitrends, Idealstor, Dell

Buffalo Technology, of Austin, Tex., has introduced the LinkStation Pro storage device, in capacities of 250GB to 750GB, designed to allow small businesses to increase the capacity of their storage networks as their needs grow.

LinkStation Pro, part of the companys LinkStation NAS device line, uses a high-speed processor and SATA (Serial ATA) hard drive for fast transfer rates.

The device allows users to access data from any Windows or Macintosh computer on the network, and two or more LinkStations can be used to back each other up over the network. LinkStation Pro also supports Active Directory and handles scheduled backups via USB 2.0 to external storage.

LinkStation Pro will be available at the end of July, with prices ranging from $299 to $899.

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Unitrends, of Columbia, S.C., has announced its Hot Bare Metal software for system protection and recovery. The software enables users to obtain point-in-time, block-based "hot snapshots" of their operating systems while performing regular backups.

Hot Bare Metal allows administrators to capture complete image backups on a system without taking it down. If a crash occurs, the software enables administrators to restore the system in 30 minutes or less.

The goal, according to Mark Phillippi, Unitrends director of product management, is to provide greater assurance to companies that system crashes and downtime will be minimized as much as possible. Offering the ability to take snapshots with systems running supports that goal, he said.

The software, aimed at the SMB (small and midsized business) market, supports Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003 and Unix.

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Removable disk-to-disk backup vendor Idealstor, of Gaithersburg, Md., has announced a combination storage and backup product that combines the features of a redundant RAID 5 Array with the removable drive functionality of a traditional backup appliance.

The resulting solution, called the FrankeNAS, an Idealstor RAID array with removable ATA drives, is split into two parts. Half of the appliance functions as a RAID 5 array of SATA drives with capacities up to 1.8TB of native storage, while the other half is configured with up to four removable drive bays that can accommodate an ATA drive with up to 1.6TB of removable storage.

The result, said Ben Ginster, Idealstors channel manager, is a solution that allows backup administrators to schedule backup jobs to run to the RAID 5 array for nearline storage and offload the data to the removable drives to be stored off-site.

By providing combined functionality, customers can avoid buying multiple NAS devices to back up and store data and multiple tape drives or removable disk devices to back up and remove the data to an offsite location, Ginster said.

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Dell PowerEdge 1855 blade servers now offer more connectivity options.

The Dell Modular Server Enclosure now can accommodate a variety of Ethernet, Fibre Channel and InfiniBand connectivity options from McData, Intel, Brocade, QLogic and Topspin, as well as from Dell itself. The goal, according to company officials, is to provide redundant server-to-storage connectivity and better integration of existing SAN (storage area network) fabrics.

The McData 4314 Fibre Channel switch for the Dell PowerEdge 1855 is immediately available, with single switch pricing starting at $8,999.

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