WD targets SMEs with new server

Digital (WD) has returned to the consumer and small-business NAS market with its Sentinel DX4000, a four-bay box that leverages Microsoft's Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials operating system, PCWorld reports.

The DX4000 comes pre-populated with either two or four 2TB drives, retailing at $950 for the 4TB version and $1 500 for the 8TB version.

According to Cnet, Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 is superior to the current version of Windows Home Server and offers support for RAID configurations and iSCSI, which allows a portion of the network storage to be used by a computer as if it were a local drive. Because of this, the WD Sentinel DX400 supports RAID 1 and 5.

The new server has 2Gb network ports, which can be used together for fail-safe purposes. The server is certified to be compatible with Windows XP or later, Mac OS X 10.6 or later, and Unix/Linux operating systems.

With WD Sentinel, users can connect to a public cloud storage provider, which offers small businesses an economical and integrated disaster recovery solution against earthquake, theft and fire or water damage, CBR Online notes.

WD Sentinel DX4000 provides five levels of data protection for every device on the small office network and is supported by WD Guardian Services. WD Sentinel comes preconfigured with enterprise-class drives, RAID storage protection, built-in server-based backup and recovery software, redundant networking ports and a redundant power option.