Storage Vendors Target Small And Midsize Businesses

Maxtor is now putting hard drives with capacities from 120 Gbytes to 300 Gbytes in a new OneTouch external box with a one-touch button, which can be configured by solution providers for a number of functions, said company executives.

One of those functions is the automatic launching of Dantz Retrospect Express software, which can be used to making instant backup copies of files and/or automated backup copies. Other uses for the one-touch button include a customized auto-launch of applications.

Dantz Retrospect Express is integrated in the OneTouch, allowing the operating system, drivers, applications, settings and user files on PCs and Macintoshes to be backed up to a server.

The Maxtor OneTouch family of products is now shipping with prices ranging from $200 for a 120-Gbyte, 7,200-rpm model to $400 for a 300-Gbyte, 5,400-rpm model with USB 2.0 and FireWire connectivity.

Meanwhile, Addonics Technologies unveiled a hard drive kit that turns any 2.5-inch hard drive into a portable Serial ATA drive for desktop and mobile PCs. The new Addonics Mini ExDrive is powered directly by the PC's USB port and can serve as a bootable drive.

The converter kit, including an external SATA cable, a USB power cable and a power adapter, is priced at $55. The company also sells a CardBus SATA adapter for mobile PCs for $59, and a CardBus SATA controller for desktop PCs for $37.

Executives at Certance said that Costa Mesa, Calif.-based company is incorporating SmartShield and TapeShield technology in its complete line of DAT 72 tape drives and automation products.

SmartShield was designed to improve the reliability of DAT 72 solutions by allowing tapes that were written "out of spec" to be read by another DAT 72 drive. This improves a drives ability to recover difficult-to-read data during a system restore via a multiple-pass, cumulative read of fragmented data, the executives said.

The company also unveiled TapeShield, which it says improves reliability by cutting the amount of dust and debris that collects inside a tape drive. This is done by sealing the chamber for the head-to-tape interface, as well as the addition of a continuous-contact capstan cleaner and a sapphire-based media-cleaning blade, the company said.

On the NAS side, Irvine, Calif.-based Procom Technology recently introduced the NetForce 1800, a midrange NAS appliance aimed at small and midsize businesses.

The NetForce 1800 can be configured for up to a full terabyte of storage in a 2U-high rack-mount footprint, and multiple units can be connected to give a maximum capacity of 6 Tbytes, the company said.

The unit can be purchased with Procom's optional ProMirror disaster recovery software, which allows clients to keep a near-realtime copy of mission-critical data at a geographically remote site.

The NetForce 1800 is expected to begin shipping in September with a price starting at $16,995.

San Diego-based Iomega introduced three new NAS backup bundles for small and midsize businesses that include products to backup to disk and archive to tape, according to the company.

The bundles, which are offered as pretested and certified solutions, include a Windows-Powered Iomega NAS server with up to 1.3 TBytes of capacity, an Iomega Tape autoloader with up to 6.4 TBytes of compressed capacity, and backup and data protection software.

The software can be selected from Computer Associates International's BrightStor ARCserve 9.0 and eTrust AntiVirus 7.0 or from Yosemite Technologies TapeWare 7.0.

There are four new bundles. One includes a 320-Gbyte NAS appliance with a Quantum 640VS tape-based tape autoloader and Yosemite TapeWare 7.0 for $6,999. The second bundles a 640-Gbyte NAS appliance with an LTO tape autoloader and CA software for $12,999, and the third bundles a 960-Gbyte appliance with the LTO autoloader and CA software for $23,999.

However, through Sept. 29, the company will increase the storage capacity of the first bundle to 480 Gbytes and that of the second bundle to 720 Gbytes.