The VAR Guy

What’s the leading cause of storage growth in your data center? It’s probably virtualization — as the SMB and midsize-business community continue to shrink their data centers with virtual servers, the space saved is often replaced by data appliances. But NetApp is releasing an addition to the FAS2000 family to help reduce the complexity that can accompany all that storage and make it easy to administer. Tech specs on the new unit are coming right up …

The FAS2240 is NetApp’s latest entry-level design, purpose-built to be high-performance, easily scalable and easy to use. NetApp is promising this new addition to be up to three times faster than the previous appliances. Outfitted with the latest version of NetApp Data ONTAP, the FS2240 will give IT admins access to a “unified, scalable” storage solution which, coupled with NetApp’s OnCommand System Manager 2.0, can deliver deep visibility into how storage is being used to help balance workloads.

The FAS2240 supports a maximum of 24 internal hard drives and up to 144 external expansion via SAS drives as users need. There are also two 10GbE ports along with 8Gb Fibre Channel. A full rundown of all the ports, LED indicators and tech specs is available at NetApp’s impressive appliance tour.

NetApp developed the FAS2240 so midsized businesses wouldn’t have to compromise or, said CEO Tom Georgens, “Make a trade-off between affordable and ‘good enough’ technology.” So what’s the price tag on the expandable storage unit? The FAS2000 family is getting an entire price restructuring, but no specific prices have been announced. The appliance solutions are slated to start at $7,500, but the price actually will be based on configuration and storage space needs. And as expected, the entire FAS2000 family is available to all NetApp resellers and distribution partners.

VARs working in the SMB space may want to reach out to the higher end of that SMB and see if these new midmarket devices are a good remedy to consolidate and clean up cluttered storage situations. Meanwhile, be sure to check out Dell Compellent’s technology, which itself is actively targeting similar markets.

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