Cisco Intros Affordable Network Storage Appliances For SMBsCisco Intros Affordable Network Storage Appliances For SMBs

Cisco's new two, four and six-bay NSS 300 Series Smart Storage appliances give SMBs terabytes of network storage that's easy to use, starting at under $1,000.Terabyte-plus internal and external hard drives make it easy for individual computer users to have all the local space they need -- but many files and databases need to be accessible by many users on the network, not to mention stored in a secure, reliable, available fashion. And all users also need separate network storage for backups.

For SMBs, shared storage also has to be affordable and easy to use, including security, and swapping in new disks in case one fails or to expand capacity.

On June 9, 2010, Cisco introduced its new NSS 300 Series Smart Storage family of desktop network storage designed for businesses or locations with fewer than one hundred users.

The NSS 300 includes an Intel 1.66Ghz dual-core Atom processor with 1GB RAM, and comes in two, four and six-bay versions. Each bay can hold 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch SATA hard disk drives; using two-terabyte drives, this means raw capacity ranging from four to twelve terabytes. (The effective capacity will be less if drives are configured to provide redundancy.)

The NSS 300's hard drives can be configured in RAID 0, 1, 5 or 6, allowing you to optimize for performance, capacity or for redundancy to protect against data loss in the event of a disk failure. The device also includes five USB 2.0 and two eSATA expansion ports, to increase total capacity or allow local backup.

"The device is quite small -- the six-bay version is 12 inches by eight inches by six inches," says Rick Moran, vice president, Small Business Solutions Marketing, Cisco. "It's fanless, quiet, and easy to put in a locked or other secure location."

Available now, MSRP pricing starts at $913 for the two-bay without drives, up to $5,625 for the six-bay with six 2TB drives.

The NSS 300 can be accessed by Windows, Mac and Linux users, and can be configured as an iSCSI target. "An NSS 300 can be used as a straightforward network-attached storage device, and also do more," says Moran. "Most companies are likely to use this for shared file-serving, and for to do ongoing dynamic backups for Windows and Mac computers. The NSS 300 offers a variety of backup modes, including allowing it to be used with MacOS as a Time Machine device.

Other features include easy browser-based set-up, and on-disk data encryption -- essential to keep data safe in case disks or the entire device is stolen, lost or misplaced.

The NSS follows the recent trend to more energy-efficient storage, including an Energy Star 5-rated power adapter, "wake on LAN," settable disk spin-down when inactive, schedulable power on/off, plus the use of the low-power Intel Atom processor. "We minimize power consumption in every possible way," says Moran.

Since the NSS 300 includes an Intel Atom processor running Linux, it can be more than just a storage device. "You can run lightweight Linux applications as a server," says Moran. Cisco includes built-in and add-on business applications, including a web server with WordPress blog publishing, and an iTunes server. Cisco also offers downloadable applications including Java, Python, the Xdove email server, Joomla content management system, Magneto e-commerce application, and the SABnzbd+ newsgroup reader. So you not only get affordable, easy to use storage/backup, but also a (low-end) media/content/web server.