Overland Storage Introduces New Disk And Tape Storage

Overland Storage is introducing new disk- and tape-based storage hardware to serve growing midsized firms that see their storage needs becoming more complex as data piles up. The SnapServer N2000 disk storage device for network-attached storage (NAS) environments and the NEO 8000E tape backup and archive storage system. Each 2U rack-mounted SnapServer N2000 has 4TB of storage capacity and is scalable for up to 144TB of system capacity. It accommodates either SAS or SATA drives and has six gigabit Ethernet ports for connectivity.

While Overland's Guardian operating system offers robust integration with a Microsoft Windows environment, it also works in Unix, Linux and Apple Mac OS X systems. The N2000 is for customers who have reached a point of complexity in their IT environment where they need a little bit more sophistication out of their storage solution. The disk storage product also works in virtualized environments running VMware, Citrix XenServer or Microsoft Hyper-V.  Its management console monitors, through a Web-based interface, a feature set that includes data replication and snapshot capability for both file and iSCSI storage volumes.

On the tape side, the NEO 8000E is also positioned for performance and scalability with capacity expandable to up to 3PB of tape storage, versus 720TB for the next level down 4000E series. The 8000E also holds 24 tape drives and offers data transfer rates up to to 24TB per hour. Despite the perception that tape storage is outmoded by disk, tape remains an essential and cost-effective technology. While disk storage may be good for backing up data that you may need to retrieve frequently, tape is particularly good at archiving data that you have to keep even though you may never need to access it.

"Wikibon IT practitioners indicate that tape continues to be a critical technology especially for larger enterprises," said David Vellante, co-founder and CEO of Wikibon.org, in a prepared statement. "Tape [is] the best fit for most long-term retention, compliance and fixed content applications." Tape storage is more energy efficient than disk storage because storage disks have to be kept spinning in a disk drive for quick access to data while a tape drive can sit idle until needed.

An N2000 with 4TB of capacity lists for $4,999 and an 8TB model lists for $5,999, although under an introductory promotion, customers who buy the 4TB model can get a free upgrade to the 8TB version. The NEO 8000E lists for $47,999.