Iomega Offers 12-Drive Rackmount Network Storage Array

EMC subsidiary Iomega, a provider of network storage to small and medium-size business,announced the latest entry in its lineup of network storage products with the launch of the StorCenter ix12-300r Network Storage array. Supporting groups of up to 250 users, the StorCenter ix12-300r Network Storage array provides up to 24TB of networked storage in a 2-rack unit (2U) form factor. In the United States, configurations of the StorCenter ix12-300r will be available in mid-May from CDW and can be purchased in mid-June from Iomega's other U.S. channel partners, including EMC's Velocity partners, at a starting price of $4,999.99 (4TB model).

The StorCenter ix12-300r utilizes the EMC LifeLine software, a Linux operating environment and suite of applications that protects data and performs other business tasks. LifeLine software is designed for cross-platform support of Windows-, Mac-, Linux- and UNIX-based computers and is HCL certified for popular virtualized environments including VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix XenServer.

"The new StorCenter ix12-300r is an exciting network storage array that delivers EMC's world class enterprise storage technologies to small businesses and distributed enterprises in the market segment between the current Iomega and EMC network storage offerings," said Jonathan Huberman, president of Iomega and the consumer and small business products division of EMC.  "From capacity, expandability and reliability to network flexibility to support for applications like Microsoft Exchange 2010, the ix12-300r retains Iomega's signature ease-of-use with key features business users expect and need, including testing and list on EMC's own EMC Storage Matrix (ESM).  The software capabilities, testing and certification set the ix12-300r apart from anything else in its category."

The StorCenter ix12-300r features new advances in the EMC LifeLine software's provisioning and storage management capabilities.  The ix12 can be configured with different levels of RAID support: RAID 5 (pre-configured), RAID 6, RAID 1 and RAID 10 (all with automatic RAID rebuild), as well as JBOD (a single volume of storage). RAID 6 provides dual parity drives for each group of data drives, further ensuring data integrity should two drives fail.

The ix12 also supports storage pools, which enables the drives inside the array to be grouped together by similar size and data protection mechanism. In addition, the ix12 supports multiple storage pools -- for example, an eight-drive RAID 6 group for file and database data and a four-drive RAID 10 group for log data.  Additionally, the ix12 supports online RAID type migration from RAID 1 to RAID 5 to RAID 6 to let users tune data protection on the fly.

"In terms of features, capabilities and price point, the new Iomega StorCenter ix12-300r fits nicely into EMC's low end network storage offerings," said Benjamin S. Woo, program vice president of worldwide storage systems research for IDC. "The product brings advanced enterprises features to small enterprises that require more data management sophistication than what had previously been available at the top of Iomega's NAS offerings. At the same time the ix12-300r tops out in features and benefits just below the EMC Clariion line. This is a cohesive product strategy to address today's dynamic SMB marketplace."

The ix12-300r also has three USB 2.0 ports to support an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to ensure data integrity in the event of a power failure or to connect external storage capacity with USB drives for loading and unloading data.  Two other new features debuting on the ix12-300r are 2GB of main memory to support both I/O workloads and software functionality, and user replaceable redundant hot-swap fans and power supplies to maximize system availability.