Network attached storage — formerly limited to larger companies with knowledge-rich IT departments and budgets to match — has trimmed down in both price and complexity to the point where smaller businesses — with little IT savvy and modest means — can take advantage of its many benefits.
Iomega’s latest foray into NAS takes a radical departure from the standard rack-mounted design, often referred to as a pizza box, and instead offers an attractive, desktop device that’s roughly the size of a shoebox. More than just a pretty face, this NAS box comes standard with Microsoft Windows Storage Server 2003 — an industry first in a box this size.
Both the NAS Series 200d 320GB and the NAS Series 480GB servers use RAID configured-drives to protect data just in case a drive should fail. The 320GB is available in RAID 0,1, while the 480GB version offers RAID 0,1 and 5 protection.
Iomega uses state-of-the art Serial ATA (SATA) drives to increase performance. The drives are what’s known as cold-swappable, meaning that you can remove them yourself once you’ve shut down the system. That’s a big advantage to any business that doesn’t have full-time tech support on site. When it comes time to upgrade, or if you should have a drive fail, instead of packing up the entire unit to ship back to the factory, all you do is shut down the system, pull out the drive that needs replacing or upgrading, and pop in a new one. You’re back in business — without substantial down time that can cost you big bucks.
This article was first published on SmallBusinessComputing.com, a JupiterWeb site. To read the entire article, click here.
Lauren Simonds is the managing editor at