Iomega may not be the first name that comes to mind when discussing network storage, but the company that brought you ZIP and Jaz drives in the 1990s wants to change that. Now an (NYSE: EMC) EMC company, Iomega is moving up into the mid-sized level of the market where EMC doesn’t usually play.
The Iomega StorCenter Pro ix4-200r NAS Rackmount Server is a mouthful of a 1U rack system with up to 4TB of network storage. It’s powered by EMC’s LifeLine operating system, which supports backup of documents and data to network-attached storage (NAS) appliances.
The StorCenter Pro ix4-200r offers iSCSI block-level access, multiple RAID configurations, folder quotas support, jumbo frames, Windows Active Directory support, remote access and management, IP security camera support and VMware Ready certification.
That’s a long way from ZIP drives. “Iomega has really reinvented itself in the last handful of years,” Marc Tanguay, manager of network storage products at Iomega, told InternetNews.com.
“EMC made the acquisition to push into the network storage market for small businesses and consumers and the growing opportunity there. What we’re trying to do is bring these storage technologies that are appropriate for enterprise and mid-enterprise and make them easier to use,” he added
The ix4-200r is a 1u unit with 4 disk drive bays, uses a 3.2 GHz Intel Celeron processor and 1GB system memory, and has a gigabit Ethernet connection. The drive fits in a standard 19-inch rack.
The VMware Ready Certification means the ix4-200r is certified as both NAS (NFS) and iSCSI storage VMware ESX server 3. In addition to the iSCSI support, the ix4-200r is pre-configured for RAID 5 but can also offers RAID 10 or single volume storage (JBOD).
The ix4-200r comes in 2TB or 4TB configurations, priced at $1,799.99 and $2,799.99, respectively. The system is available now worldwide from Iomega resellers.