PC maker Gateway, which has been focusing more of its resources on the storage hardware business in the 18 months, launched on March 1 five new network-attached storage rack-mounted devices, the first new additions to its line of enterprise data storage products since June of last year.
The new NAS packages feature Microsoft Windows Storage Server 2003 R2 and a choice of Intel Xeon processors or AMD Opteron processors, a company spokesperson said.
The new devices—designated the Gateway E-9422R, E-9425R, E-9522R, E-9525R and E-9520T Storage Servers—are preconfigured for relatively simple plug-and-play installation and deployment, the spokesperson said. They are also designed to integrate into most existing NAS configurations.
Besides handling data storage, NAS servers also can act as file servers hosting files or as local print servers. The new Gateway devices are aimed at business environments requiring users to continually access and share documents that are stored and safeguarded in a central, highly protected IT system.
Examples of this usage would be hospital personnel, who must access medical files on a daily basis; or educational institutions, which require students to save their lessons to a central server, so teachers can easily access their schoolwork.
“We are seeing increased demand for networked storage across the board from all of our customer segments,” said Barry Silvester, Gateways senior product manager in Enterprise Storage Platforms in Irvine, Calif.
The new Gateway servers feature scalable tower designs and offer hot-swappable, high-capacity SATA or SAS hard drives and redundant hot-swappable cooling and power options.
Hot-swappable hard drives can be removed and replaced without powering down the entire storage system.
The new storage servers also come equipped with manageability features, including Web-based management for Windows 2003 Storage Server; Gateway Systems Manager; and GLO (Gateway Lights Out) system management.
GLO brings a high level of efficiency to professional customers, allowing a server to be remotely shut down, restarted and managed regardless of its power condition, the spokesperson said.
An optional low-cost remote control K/V/M with media redirect features enables full remote control of a server. This capability allows customers to set up, manage or add applications from their desktop, notebook or another server through a floppy disk drive or a CD.
Pricing and Availability
The new storage servers are available now, with prices starting at $2,549.