Seagate Announces BlackArmor Storage for SMBs

Seagate's line of BlackArmor storage servers is aimed squarely at midmarket companies looking for an affordable data storage solution.

Storage solution vendor Seagate reaffirmed its commitment to the small and medium-size business space by announcing its BlackArmor line of products designed to protect data.

The first two products to be announced for this new family of small business storage solutions are the Seagate BlackArmor NAS 440 and BlackArmor NAS 420 servers. Each is a four-bay NAS (network-attached storage) device, populated with Seagate disk drives. The NAS 420 comes with two drives in a four-drive chassis. The NAS 440 comes populated with four drives. Capacities vary from 2TB in the NAS 420 to a maximum capacity of 8TB in the NAS 440.

"What we are trying to do is provide a total solution out of the box-hardware, software and service," said Naser Mgariaf, senior manager of product line management for Seagate's consumer solutions division. "The idea is to save SMBs time and money by providing cost-effective, large-capacity storage that is also easy to manage."

The company is strongly pushing the servers' ease of use, touting their on-board LCD screens, which display settings and status information (including event alerts), as well as their "intuitive management utility" for simplified configuration and data access. "It's almost plug-and-play. Literally, it starts backing up automatically," Mgariaf said.

Both servers deliver continuous and automatic backup of data on up to 50 networked computers with full-system backup and RAID options to help provide data protection and redundancy. Customers can also access and share business content securely from the road with an Internet browser without any extra installs or software. Companies can invite colleagues and clients to access select files and folders without needing an FTP site while keeping their firewall intact and maintaining the security of their network.

"We're going after the lower end of the SMB space with this product," Mgariaf said. "These SMBs don't have full-time staff in-house, so they rely on VARs, consultants, or, more likely, friends and family. That's why we want to make it easy for them to see the value immediately."

The NAS 440 ($1,199.99 for a 4TB model) and NAS 420 ($799.99 for a 2TB model) network servers support Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later. Both network servers can be purchased through channel partners and select retailers, including Staples and Office Depot, and e-tailers like CDW and BestBuy.com. Mgariaf said the company is also in negotiations to sell the servers through real-world Best Buy business stores.