IBM targets low-end storage market
Stephen Shankland Former Principal Writer
Stephen Shankland worked at CNET from 1998 to 2024 and wrote about processors, digital photography, AI, quantum computing, computer science, materials science, supercomputers, drones, browsers, 3D printing, USB, and new computing technology in general. He has a soft spot in his heart for standards groups and I/O interfaces. His first big scoop was about radioactive cat poop.
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IBM will announce a new lower-end network-attached storage (NAS) system Wednesday, the TotalStorage NAS 100, which will go on sale in August for $4,420. The slim 1.75-inch-thick product has a capacity of 480GB with four "hot-swappable" drives that can be replaced without shutting the system down in the event of failure. The system is about half the price of IBM's NAS 200, which uses higher-speed SCSI drives instead of the NAS 100's somewhat slower ATA drives.
Network-attached storage systems, popularized by Network Appliance and now sold by IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Quantum and others, are useful for storing files such as e-mail or shared documents. IBM's new system includes IBM Director software that can monitor some aspects of the hardware and help flag problems before they become severe.