Iomega NAS Line Boasts Improved Speed, Capacity

Iomega Corp. updated its network-attached storage line Friday with the NAS 400r, a rack-mounted NAS line featuring faster processors and improved capacity.

The refresh also includes an increase in capacity, with options up to 1.6 terabytes.

The San Diego-based companys NAS devices will compete just under an enterprise market thats become heavily saturated with competitors, according to Iomega executives. Eventually, the company plans to migrate its NAS line into the power user and home user segments, where network-attached hard drives and external hard drives currently dominate. For now, Iomega believes that its NAS 400r will compete with products like Adaptec Inc.s Snap Server lineup or the PowerVault 745N from Dell Inc.

/zimages/6/28571.gifClick hereto read why Eric Lundquist says enterprise storage is a top priority now.

The NAS 400r ships in three options: a 400GB/600GB option for $4,499; a 400GB/1TB option for $5,999; and a 400GB/1.6TB option for $7,499. All of the NAS boxes use Serial ATA drives, although an Ultra320 SCSI has been included for backup purposes. The NAS 400r boxes can configure the drives into RAID 0, 1 and 5 arrays.

All three of the NAS 400r boxes include a three-year warranty and one year of next-day on-site repair with a “Gold” service option. Users can upgrade to a “Platinum” or “Platinum Plus” option, which includes three years of next-day on-site repair and three years of same-day 24-by-7 on-site repair, in a 4-hour window. The Platinum Plus option costs an additional $1,799.

The NAS 400r is powered by Windows Storage Server 2003, which Iomega used as a “development platform,” making its own software tweaks to enable hot-swapping without software intervention or power cycling, sad Wayne Arvidson, director of professional storage services at Iomega, in an interview.

All of the options include the eTrust Antivirus 7.1 package and Iomegas Automatic Backup software. The 1.6TB model also includes an integrated print server and the ability to offload Microsoft Exchange databases.

All of the NAS boxes include Intel processors; the two larger models incorporate a 3.0GHz Pentium 4 hyper-threaded processor and a full gigabyte of DDR memory, while the smaller 640GB model uses a 2.8GHz Celeron chip and only 512MB of DRAM. Dual Gigabit Ethernet is now a standard feature, not an option as in previous models.

/zimages/6/28571.gifCheck out eWEEK.coms for the latest news, reviews and analysis on enterprise and small business storage hardware and software.