Iomega Unveils Four-Drive NAS for SMBs

Iomega, one of the world's leading vendors of storage products and solutions, has announced today the debut of its next-generation quad-drive desktop NAS appliance, the Iomega StorCenter ix4-200d. Designed with high-class EMC storage technologies, the new NAS is touted as an ideal device for small businesses, distributed offices and home office networks, providing support for a high-capacity storage solution. In addition, the device also incorporates a number of protection features required by a dedicated IT staff.

“The new StorCenter ix4-200d delivers the unquestionable advantages of EMC's world class enterprise storage technologies to small businesses and distributed enterprises in an affordable and easy to use solution,” said Jonathan Huberman, president of Iomega and the Consumer and Small Business Products Division of EMC. “From device-to-device replication and iSCSI support to dual Gigabit Ethernet connectivity, VMware certification and other innovative and user-friendly features, the ix4-200d is an excellent yet affordable NAS appliance that gives smaller organizations and work groups not only cost-effective powerful network storage but many of the same sophisticated data management capabilities as a Fortune 100 corporation that no competitor can match.”

The solution is expected to be available in capacities of 2TB, 4TB and 8TB, making use of the acclaimed EMC LifeLine software, an operating environment that is based on the Linux architecture. Said software is designed for cross-platform support with the PC, Mac and Linux computer systems, enabling the ix4-200d to deliver the necessary storage to a wider range of users.

According to the company, the ix4-200d can be configured with different levels of RAID support, including the pre-configured RAID 5 and RAID 10 (both with automatic RAID rebuild), in addition to JBOD. The four SATA drives installed in the ix4-200d can be replaced at any time, while the three USB 2.0 ports can be used for adding external storage or connecting to a printer. The drive also incorporates dual Gigabit Ethernet connectivity.

Iomega's new NAS is available in capacities of 2TB with a starting price tag of US$699, while the 4TB and the 8TB models are available worldwide for US$899.99 and US$1,899.99.