Adaptec rolls out network-attached storage boxes for SMBs

Adaptec this week launched software and its highest capacity network-attached storage appliances designed for small and midsize businesses.

The company’s StorAssure Personal Edition software allows for continuous backup of desktop or laptop data to an Adaptec Snap Server appliance. The Snap Server 500 Series consists of three new 1U-high (1.75-inch) NAS boxes with a maximum capacity of 43.2T bytes of Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) drives or 26.4T bytes of Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) drives.

StorAssure wizards simplify configuration of the software and the creation of backup jobs. The use of rules lets users decide the types of files to protect. The software also lets a user save multiple versions of files.

When users are disconnected from the network, changes to files are constantly logged. When the user reconnects, changes are saved to the network automatically. If a laptop is lost or files are deleted or corrupted, the software guides the user through the recovery process.

Backup of laptop and desktop data has not been a priority for SMBs, analysts say. According to the Enterprise Storage Group, SMB data is growing at 60% to 100% annually. IDC reports that more than half of SMBs do not back up their client data.

The Snap Server 500 Series consists of the 510, 520 and 550 appliances, each of which is configured with redundant, hot-swappable power supplies and AMD Opteron processors for its storage controller. The appliances connect to the network via redundant Gigabit Ethernet adapters. All three NAS boxes support RAID 0, 1 and 5 for fault-tolerance and are managed via Snap Server Manager software.

The 510, which uses SATA drives, has a capacity ranging from 512M to 4G bytes. The 520 uses SATA and SAS drives and has a capacity ranging from 1T to 26T bytes. The 550 also uses SATA and SAS drives and scales to 43.2T bytes.

Adaptec bundles CA eTrust anti-virus and BakBone’s NetVault backup software with its Snap Servers. NetVault contains virtual tape library capability, allowing customers to deploy disk-to-disk or disk-to-disk-to-tape backup.

StorAssure is $36 per Windows client. It works with versions of Windows ranging from ME though XP SP2 and Windows 2003. The Snap Server 510 starts at $3,600; the 520 starts at $4,600; and, the 550 starts at $10,000.

The company’s Snap Servers compete against NAS offerings from HP, Dell, IBM and Sun (formerly Procom).