Storage Toolkit

Iomega taps EMC tech for rack-mount NAS

Colin Barker ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 17 Apr 2009 16:08 BST

Iomega has launched a rack-mounted NAS storage unit for small businesses, built using technology developed by its parent company EMC.

The Iomega StorCenter Pro ix4-200r NAS Rackmount Server, introduced on Thursday, contains four disk-drive bays, a 3.2GHz Intel Celeron processor, 1GB system memory and a 1Gb Ethernet connection. It is designed to accommodate standard small chassis, which are 1.75 inches high. It comes with either 2TB of storage, for £1,399, or 4TB of storage, for £1,639.

The StorCenter Pro ix4-200r has full iSCSI support, Iomega said, and the unit is approved for both NAS and iSCSI storage when using virtualisation software with ESX Server 3, from another EMC-owned company, VMware.

Enterprise storage and software specialist EMC bought Iomega, best-known for consumer storage, a year ago. "Iomega will play a key role in EMC's strategy to expand our information storage and management capabilities deeper into the high-growth consumer and small-business markets," the company's chief executive, Joe Tucci, said at the time of the purchase.

The new ix4-200r has a range of features — including support for Raid 5 resiliency, three USB 2.0 ports, support for multiple file formats and support for Windows Active Directory — that are more usually found in high-end units. It runs EMC's LifeLine operating system and comes with EMC's Retrospect Express backup software installed.

"The feature set and EMC software innovation in the new StorCenter Pro ix4-200r makes this rack-mount NAS a powerful and affordable networking solution for today's dynamic small and mid-sized businesses," Iomega's president, Jonathan Huberman, said in a statement.

The ix4-200r is available now.