EMC Corp. Wednesday announced two new network-attached storage (NAS) devices that use the company’s Clariion array as a back end while offering users a mix of low-cost Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA) disk storage and high-end Fibre Channel disk storage. The new products continue EMC’s strategy of targeting the midrange marketplace with low-cost hardware that supports high-end functionality.
Hopkinton, Mass.-based EMC said the NS600S, a midrange version of its current NS600 NAS file server, comes with a maximum of two engines and costs US$114,000 for 1TB of capacity. EMC also announced its NS600G, a NAS gateway device that allows existing storage-area network (SAN) users to serve up files from their Fibre Channel network using a Clariion CX400 or CX600 disk array. The NS600G starts at US$97,000 for a two engine device and US$63,000 for a single engine version.
In comparison, EMC charges US$167,000 for a 1TB model of its higher-end Celerra Clustered Network Server, which has two to 14 engines and uses a high-end Symmetrix array as its storage.
Steve Kenniston, an analyst at The Enterprise Storage Group Inc. in Milford, Mass., said EMC’s new gateway device gives it a foothold against established players such as Hewlett-Packard Co. and Network Appliance Inc., both of which have sold NAS gateway products for some time. “They’re rounding out the whole message in the midtier range,” he said.
EMC said its Celerra NS600 and Celerra CNS arrays can now also support lower-cost ATA disks, which can be used as backup within the same box using Fibre Channel disks as primary storage for application servers. The arrays can use backup software from CommVault Systems Inc., Computer Associates International Inc., Legato Systems Inc. and Veritas Software Corp.
EMC also announced the general availability of Microsoft Windows-powered NAS software on its Clariion CX midrange disk arrays. The NetWin 200 product, originally announced in May, is based on the entry-level Clariion CX200 hardware and scales from 500Gb up to 4.4TB capacity. Pricing begins at US$32,000 for the 500Gb model.
The NetWin 200 will allow companies to consolidate the backup of their low-end Windows-based servers, which can number in the thousands for many companies.
“Customers, especially Dell clients, who’ve been waiting to do data management better, have been looking forward to this,” Kenniston said.
For details visit www.emc.com.