EMC Expands IP Support With New NAS ProductsEMC Expands IP Support With New NAS Products

EMC Corp. expanded its offerings for the midrange market with new network-attached storage products that feature stronger support for IP transmission of data. EMC already is strong with high-end storage systems that use the more expensive Fibre Channel standard for higher performance.

EMC introduced two NAS appliances, said it would begin shipping another, and is supporting low-cost hard-disk drives. All the products deal with the movement and storage of files, in contrast to the large blocks of data that the company's high-end Symmetrix system handles.

The Celerra NS600G is a gateway appliance designed to let customers shift files to existing Clariion systems, which usually deal with blocks of data. The Celerra NS600S has one controller box or data mover, making it suitable as an entry-level system. EMC also began shipping another entry-level system, the NetWin 200 NAS, which is designed for businesses with Windows storage needs. The vendor is providing support for inexpensive ATA hard drives in the NS600 and Celerra CNS clusters, making the low-cost systems attractive as a backup platform.

Prices start at $97,000 for the 600G, $114,000 for the 600S with a terabyte of capacity, and around $32,000 for the NetWin 200.

The NS600G gateway appliance should appeal to businesses with underutilized Clariion storage. Says Steve Kenniston at Enterprise Storage Group, "Data growth is from files, and the 600G gives Clariion customers the ability to fill up unused capacity."