EMC's Iomega reveals new storage products for SMBs

EMC subsidiary, Iomega has launched its new StorCentre PX Series of disk storage arrays aimed at the SMB market.

It features four-bay and six-bay desktop models and a four-bay rackmount model, each available in scalable configurations.

The NAS arrays are optimised for 3.5-inch, 7,200rpm, serial ATA (SATA) hard disk drives, but they can also use 2.5-inch drives. The devices are also the first for Iomega that can use solid-state drives (SSDs).

It features hot-swappable drives and several levels of RAID disk protection, and also includes an iSCSI port for block-level data transfers.

The arrays are certified for VMware vSphere 4.0, Citrix XenServer, and Windows Server 2003/2008/2008 R2 HyperV environments.

EMC senior director of consumer and small business division, Jay Krone, said Iomega’s range spanned from consumer to SoHo, and other products that target really high-end small business.

“What we’re missing is products in the middle that are targeted at the classic small business market, 50 – 200 employee space,” he said.

According to Krone, half of the storage spend in Australia was within organisations that had 250 employees or less.

“There’s more than half a million businesses in that segment of the market, which makes this a direct channel play,” he said.

Krone said it will be looking to sign up new value-add resellers. He highlighted resellers that cater within the applications space, for example, video surveillance and virtualisation, which would be an ideal fit for the new PX series.

Iomega is distributed via Ingram Micro and Westcon Group.

EMC purchased Iomega in 2008 for $US213 million.

ComputerWorld US Lucas Mearian contributed to this report.