Promise Technology, Inc. has announced release of ConnectStor II, an ATA RAID 0, 1 network-attached storage (NAS) subsystem that allows easy user installation of up to two Ultra ATA/100 hard drives for MIS professionals, resellers, system integrators, and small network administrators. The product is available in South Africa through local Promise distributor, Memtek-MMW.
Says Gary Naidoo, product manager: storage at Memtek-MMW: "ConnectStor II offers maximum flexibility in terms of storage capacity and speed, with substantial savings over competitive pre-configured units."
ConnectStor II is designed for users to install their own choice of up to two Ultra ATA/100 drives (backward compatible with Ultra ATA/66/33 and EIDE), unlike pre-configured NAS subsystems that limit owners to pre-defined storage capacity, drive type, and speed.
It offers plug-and-work, built-in support for existing Windows 95/98/ME peer-to-peer networks, Windows NT/2000 networks, UNIX, or Linux networks. Supporting dynamic IP addressing by a DHCP server, the unit also comes with a proprietary IPassign utility that manually finds the ConnectStor II unit over a network and assigns an IP address.
"Once drives are physically installed, ConnectStor II automatically formats and initialises drives, creating a RAID 1 mirrored array for data protection in case a drive fails," explains Naidoo. "When configured, it also permits users to easily create a two-drive RAID 0 striping array that combines the storage of drives into a single volume and doubles internal data transfer speeds for large files."
A password-protected, browser-based management utility allows ConnectStor II to be remotely configured and managed via the Internet. The administrator or network supervisor can easily customise the unit to restrict user access to certain folders and limit the amount of storage capacity for each user. In addition, it supports enhanced access protection offered by network password servers, if available. Other management features include event notification via e-mail, password assignment, array and drive status monitoring, ConnectStor II embeds Promise Technology`s Ultra ATA/100 ASIC. "This makes ConnectStor II products compatible with the widest cross-section of Ultra ATA drives available," adds Naidoo.
"This unit provides MIS and IT professionals with the ability to instantly expand their storage requirements for popular network operating systems at much lower price points than traditional, pre-configured NAS devices," he says. ConnectStor II comes with a standard 10Base-T/100Base-TX Ethernet connection and also supports APC-compatible uninterruptible power supply via COM2 port. A COM1 port allows local access to the operating system for troubleshooting.
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