Iomega Intros 4-Bay StorCenter Pro ix4-200r NAS

Iomega recently introduced its 4-Bay StorCenter Pro ix4-200r NAS for those into rack-mounted gear, but what if you're more into the traditional style? If so, there's the new StorCenter ix4-200d NAS, a high performance four-drive desktop NAS designed more for consumers and small business owners than corporations and IT departments.

The black box sports EMC storage technologies as well as VMware certification for virtualization installations, and Iomega asserts that you can have it up and running with just "four mouse clicks and a few minutes." Not bad! The drive's four bays provide room for up to 8TB of storage (four 2TB internal HDDs), all of which can obviously be accessed via your network or the Internet. A few of the highlights are listed below:

• Remote Access: Set up remote access and remotely manage and access data on the ix4-200d from anywhere in the world.
• Multiple Network Protocols: Works in Windows, Linux and Mac environments with network protocol support including CIFS/SMB/Rally, NFS, and AFP/Bonjour. The ix4-200d also supports advanced protocols such as HTTP, FTP and SNMP.
• Time Machine(R) Support: Lets Apple(R) users easily backup any Mac computers running OS X (10.5 or later) using Time Machine.
• Windows(R) Active Directory Support: Allows the ix4-200d to function as a client member in an Active Directory domain, giving users and groups access to the ix4-200d.
• UPS Support: Enables unattended system shutdown without data loss in the case of power failure.
• Video Surveillance: Supports up to five Axis(R) Network video cameras, for real-time monitoring and video capture directly to the ix4-200d, without the need of a dedicated computer (dependent upon system workload and network conditions). The ix4-200d can be used as a storage target for other network surveillance cameras as well.
• Print Server: Supports intelligent print sharing capability for up to three USB printers directly connected to the ix4-200d.
• UPnP AV Media Server: Compatible with UPnP and DLNA certified media players, the ix4-200d streams photos, audio content and videos to not only laptops and computers but a variety of media devices, including game consoles (Xbox(R) 360, Sony PlayStation(R) 3), audio bridges, iTunes(TM) players, networked digital picture frames and other compatible devices.
• Bluetooth(R) capability: Allows users to upload contacts, photos and more from a cell phone, pocket PC or Blackberry(R) phone (Bluetooth USB adapter required, sold separately).
• Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP): Supports no touch, automatic transfer of photos from digital cameras via one of the four USB 2.0 ports on the ix4-200d.
• Versatility: Supports read and write on various formats, including Fat32, HFS+, NTFS or ext2/ext3 formatted hard disks.
• Alerts: Provides email and SNMP notification for quick system status.
• System Dashboard: Provides easy-to-understand status information on space utilization, device, peripheral and backup status.

Iomega has made this unit available now in three sizes: 2TB, 4TB and 8TB. It doesn't look like there's an option for buying an empty one, however. Internally, you'll find EMC LifeLine software (which works with OS X, Linux and Windows), a fully-developed Linux operating environment and suite of applications that protects your data and helps manage things. The ix4-200d can also be configured with different levels of RAID support: RAID 5 (pre-configured) and RAID 10 (both with automatic RAID rebuild), as well as JBOD, with the four drives in the ix4 being user-replaceable SATA II hard drives. Around back, you'll find twin Gigabit Ethernet ports as well as three USB 2.0 sockets for adding network printers or additional storage.

The 2TB StorCenter ix4-200d NAS drive is now available worldwide for $699.99, the 4TB model is $899.99, and the 8TB model is $1,899.99.