Western Digital subsidiary WD announced an expansion of its Arkeia network backup line of appliances, including the Arkeia DA1300 and DA2300, which are designed to provide small and midsize businesses (SMBs) with an all-in-one backup and disaster-recovery platform.
The WD Arkeia DA1300 will be available in late September, and the DA2300 model will be available later in the fall. Both appliances will be available through select direct market resellers (DMRs )and WD-authorized value-added resellers (VARs) in the United States, Canada and Europe. The suggested price, including hardware and software, starts at $3,490 for the 4TB DA1300 model.
The Arkeia appliances use a patented technology called Progressive Deduplication that reduces storage volume and delivers faster backups. The DA1300 and DA2300 backup appliances also integrate the Intel Atom dual-core processor and the Intel Xeon processors. As with the Arkeia line’s rack-mounted appliances, the DA2300 uses solid-state drives (SSD) to maximize backup and data-recovery performance.
The entry-level DA1300 features WD Red network-attached storage (NAS) hard drives, while the DA2300 features enterprise-class WD Se hard drives for improved data integrity. Raw storage capacity ranges from 4TB to 8TB for the DA1300 and 8TB to 16TB for the DA2300. Both appliances are field-upgradable, and disks are configured in RAID-1.
Bundled with the WD Arkeia v10.1 software, the appliances come with an unlimited number of file and folder backup agents on any of over 200 distinct platform types, including major platforms such as Windows, Linux, Mac, HP-UX, Solaris and Novell. The software also offers optional specialized agents for hot backups of important applications and databases.
“An increasing number of SMBs are seeing the value in appliance-based solutions, and WD is focused on delivering smart, simple software bundled with purpose-built hardware to effectively serve this thriving segment,” Bill Evans, general manager of WD’s SMB business unit, said in a statement. “The new WD Arkeia DA1300 and DA2300 network backup appliances provide a fast, easy-to-use and affordable desktop solution for SMB customers to protect their data within any office environment.”
Other features include an on-boarding wizard to streamline the appliance setup process, an integrated LCD display that communicates status and critical alert information, and software that extends support for hybrid cloud backup capabilities to the full line of Arkeia appliances, allowing administrators to supplement network replication of backup sets offsite by using USB-connected hard drives to transfer initial and large backup sets and also to size WAN bandwidth for the replication of nightly incremental backups.
The new cube designs for both models measure 8.1-in. by 6.3-in. by 8.8-in. and are compact enough to be deployed on any desktop. Both appliances bundle one-year Bronze level support, which includes a limited hardware warranty, software updates and technical support. The appliances currently safeguard more than 100,000 networks for 7,000 customers in 70 countries, a company release said.