Seagate Enters Rackmount NAS Market with Focus on Enterprise Users

Addressing the specific storage needs of SMBs in the region, company aims to deliver the industry’s highest density storage solutions

Mobilk - Alongside its presence at this year’s GITEX Technology Week, Seagate Technology—a worldwide leader in storage solutions—has announced a broadening of its enterprise storage portfolio with the release of its Seagate Business Storage rackmount NAS, delivering centralized backup, data protection and remote access to critical information for small and medium-sized business organizations (SMBs). 

Available in 8-bay and 4-bay 1U rackmount form factors in capacities ranging from 4 to 32 terabytes, the new Seagate Business Storage 1U rackmounts provide the performance needed for businesses to support multiple simultaneous connections and enable everyone within an organization to easily backup and share files.  

“Thousands of small and medium businesses around the world already depend on Seagate NAS solutions. Now we’re taking the lead by delivering the industry’s highest density storage solution,” said Scott Horn, vice president of marketing at Seagate. “With the industry’s first hot-swappable 8-bay 1U rackmount NAS and our new 4-bay rackmount NAS, our new solutions will take the lead in this category with top performance and the highest capacity at an approachable price point for our SMB customers.”

Designed to backup all Windows and Mac computers within a network to a single centralized location, the new NAS solutions are compatible with backup software for Windows PCs and are also compatible with Apple’s Time Machine® software for Mac OS X computers. Additionally, the 8-bay and 4-bay rackmount NAS solutions feature the new Seagate NAS OS, which has been redesigned from the ground up to deliver superior performance along with a clean, intuitive web-based dashboard for managing the server from the office or the road.

"In many cases, SMB storage requirements can be more challenging to meet than those of enterprises," said Liz Conner, Sr. Research Analyst, Storage Systems, IDC.  "SMBs desire high capacity, efficient storage while dealing with limited budget, physical space, and IT expertise.  Seagates new 8-bay Business Storage helps to meet these demanding needs by providing up to 32 terabytes in a 1U form factor, high ease of use, and desired features at a competitive price point.”

According to new research from IDC, the enterprise hardware market in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries registered mixed results in Q2 2013 with the UAE and Saudi Arabia seeing a decline while smaller countries like Oman and Bahrain posted exceptional growth, bolstered by projects in the oil and gas and telecommunications verticals, respectively. Qatar and Kuwait also witnessed healthy growth, owing to infrastructure investments across various verticals.

Cloud Integration and Security

Anywhere access is delivered seamlessly with the integrated Wuala cloud service and business-focused apps for PC Mac and smartphone and tablet. The free Wuala app automatically syncs files and make them accessible from mobile devices such as iPhones, iPads, and Android devices to improve employees’ productivity while on the go. Because the files are encrypted and transferred directly from the NAS to the recipients, business-critical files remain private and secure. 

8-Bay Rackmount – Enterprise-Class Performance 

The 8-bay rackmount NAS boasts enterprise-class hardware inside and out making it the ideal solution for today’s business that demand a higher level of performance and reliability for up to 250 employees. Powered by Seagate’s NAS OS and featuring an Intel 2.3GHz dual core processor, this new network attached storage server will deliver superior file transfer performance. The innovative new design of the 8-bay rackmount features eight 3.5-inch Enterprise Capacity (formerly Constellation ES.3) drives that are hot-swappable for easy storage upgrades and maintenance. The system showcases an innovative fan design for effective cooling and simple serviceability. Additionally, the redundant, swappable power supplies and dual Gigabit Ethernet connections provide that extra level of assurance that your business will stay up and running. 

4-Bay Rackmount – Flexibility and Performance for Growing Business

Designed for companies of up to 100 employees, the 4-bay rackmount provides high-performance storage capacity at an affordable price. Featuring best-in-class hard drives optimized for NAS to support customized error recovery controls, specialized power management and vibration tolerance for optimum performance and reliability. Seagate NAS HDD drives provide the best performing high-capacity storage for NAS servers. With a 2.13GHz dual-core Intel Atom™ processor coupled with 2GB of RAM, the 4-bay rackmount NAS delivers impressive file transfer performance for this category of storage. Plus, the built-in support for iSCSI enables maximum performance and compatibility for virtualized environments.

Pricing and Availability

Seagate Rackmount Business Storage comes in array of capacities to meet nearly every business need. The 8-bay 1U rackmount will be available in October ranging from $3000 for the 8-terabyte model to $6000 for the 32 terabyte model. The 4-bay 1U rackmount will be available later this quarter. The rackmount itself will be available without drives for an affordable price point of $1000. The lowest capacity 4-terabyte model will retail at approximately $1300 and $2500 for the 16-terabyte model.