14 DAY TRIAL // Although Acer's best-known for its portable computing systems, the company's also actively involved in the server and data-center storage businesses, a family of products that's now unveiling on the US market.
We'll have to admit that Acer's offerings are actually quite impressive, as the company's lineup includes a wide variety of platforms, such as tower servers, rack servers, multi-node servers and blade-servers.
The Acer tower servers (AT series) pack one or two processors to offer maximum computing capabilities as well as enhanced I/O and storage options, while the rack servers (AR line) include up to four different processors, while in the same time reducing the amount of power they need to function and the space requirements.
Next in line comes the Gemini AW series of rack multi-node servers, that target specifically cloud environments and deliver a very compact form factors, as well as a high level of power efficiency.
Acer's also unveiled in the US a line of blade servers (AB), capable of delivering a very good value and rapid deployment, as well as the Network Attached Storage (AN) line, that provides some pretty impressive storage capabilities for the data-center environment (up to 12 SAS or SATA hot plug drives for the Acer AN1600 F1 model, for example).
Since we're talking about server and storage products, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that they're actually pretty expensive, although not at costly as we might have expected at a first sight.
So, Acer tower servers start at around 721 US dollars, the rack servers at roughly US$1,105.52, while the rack multi-node server (Gemini AW series) is even more expensive, selling in the vicinity of $3,583.58.
Last, but certainly not least, come Acer's blade servers, whose pricing point starts at around $2,299.99, as well as the most expensive products in the company's lineup, namely the $10,499 Acer network attached storage (AN) units.