Storage Dives Down

More and more vendors are scaling down their storage and backup offerings in an effort to win a slice of the lucrative SMB market. Fujitsu, Iomega, and Rorke Data all unveiled new desktop technologies today, in an attempt to tap into this trend. (See Iomega Expands Desktop REV, Fujitsu Shows Off at Intel Summit, and Rorke Launches Desktop RAID.)

By many accounts, growth in storage spending by small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) is expected to outstrip the growth of the overall storage market. In line with the trend, a number of big-name vendors, including EMC, HP, IBM, and Sun, are touting RAID arrays in this space, and other, smaller firms are looking to expand their product lines.

Iomega, for example, which already offers SMB RAID arrays, is now targeting desktop backup with the launch of its REV Loader 280. According to the vendor, the disk-based autoloader is the size of a small shoebox and, with eight disks, offers a capacity of 280 Gbytes compressed and 560 Gbytes uncompressed.

The idea behind desktop backup is that small firms, which may not possess extensive inhouse IT resources, can quickly secure their data directly from their workstations with a minimum of hassle.

A number of vendors, including HP and Exabyte, currently offer tape-based desktop backup, although disk-based offerings are few and far between. (See Disk Cartridges Aim to Challenge Tape and ProStor Intros Backup Tech.) "Iomega is pretty much the only company out there that has a removable hard drive," says Wolfgang Schlichting, research director at analyst firm IDC. "Users can get a high-performance disk-based model without the slowness that is often associated with tape."Users looking for disk-based backup may play price off against capacity. Iomega's offering, for example, costs around $1,000, significantly less than Exabyte's VXA-2 PacketLoader 1x7 Desktop Autoloader, which has a list price of $3,299. Exabyte, however, has the edge in terms of scale, offering a maximum capacity of 1.1 Tbytes.

At least one user will not be deploying the new Iomega device anytime soon. Al Prendergast, CIO of the Las Vegas Clark County Library District, tells Byte and Switch that he is not won over by the concept of desktop-based backup. "I don't think that's an option. It would be more complex and it wouldnt fit in with what we need to do," he says.

Prendergast feels that overhauling his district's existing setup, where he archives from servers to tape, would be way too much effort. Additionally, he adds, tape is the best option for him, because he needs to keep data for long periods of time.

Like Iomega, which unveiled its new backup technology at the CeBIT show in Germany today, Fujitsu also used the event to add to its SMB story, unveiling its new 2.5-inch external HandyDrives. Fujitsu execs are already touting the "pocket size" drives, which are an extension of the firm's existing internal drive technology, as an ideal fit for PC-based storage.

Suppliers are also looking to expand their SMB offerings into niche areas. Tom Kampfer, Iomega's CEO, tells Byte and Switch that he will be pushing his new desktop products into the professional video space, where he says they are a good fit for editing work.This is also a key element of Rorke Data's new technology -- a workstation RAID system aimed at the broadcast, video, and digital imaging markets. According to the vendor, the Qubex RAID array offers up to 3 Tbytes of storage at a list price under $2.50 per Gbyte.

Fujitsu's new HandyDrives, which are priced at $226 and $295 for 80 Gbytes and 120 Gbytes, respectively, are available today. Iomega says that the new REV Loader 280 will be on the market sometime in late March or early April.

— James Rogers, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch

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