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Nexsan shrink-wraps archiving

A Centera for the rest of us...

Storage subsystem developer Nexsan Technologies has introduced two standardised file archiving appliances, aimed at helping small and mid-sized businesses store their digital documents online.

The Assureon NX is 3.7TB of content-addressable storage (CAS) and allows archived data to be retrieved using a file manager. The Assureon SA holds less, at 2TB, because it adds indexing and a browser-based search engine for faster retrieval. Nexsan claims that 2TB is enough for around 20 million documents.

Both can be replicated for security, and their files are accessible to other systems on the network via CIFS or NFS. They list at £26,500 for the NX and £35,000 for the SA.

The two appliances are simplified versions of Nexsan's existing enterprise-class Assureon GX archive, which is pitched directly against EMC's Centera, said Nexsan's European sales director Andy Hill. All three are based on software which Nexsan acquired when it bought software developer Evertrust in 2005 as part of its long-term plan to get away from just selling SATA-based disk storage.

Unlike the GX, the new models are not designed to be expandable. "When it fills, you buy another," Hill said. "The new versions are intended to make archiving simpler and cheaper to implement.

"Static files are a huge growth area, and not many others have a content engine with search capabilities. It could be complementary to email archiving software, for example."

He added that the Assureons have full file-level connectivity and the ability to apply rules and policies to the archive - for example, to offer documents up for deletion once their legal retention period is past. ®

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