I GOT a look at Iomega’s slick range of storage solutions at the company’s offices in Sydney and it was immediately clear that Iomega is taking the electronic security market very seriously, with a particular focus on the needs of video surveillance solutions. Also obvious was the breadth of the Iomega range.
Iomega network storage ranges from compact desktop models handling 4TB all the way up to rack-mount solutions able to support 100TB. But a key element of Iomega’s solutions isn’t just raw storage capacity. Instead, Iomega has it head firmly in the clouds, with all its systems designed to enterprise-class data protection levels.
At the heart of this capability is the LifeLine operating system which was developed by Iomega’s parent company EMC. This software solution offers network-based storage, backup, protection, and management features for any digital files including business records, photos, music and video, along with media streaming capabilities.
For commercial users LifeLine software delivers features including advanced file sharing, data management, data protection and security capabilities. Its content indexing feature allows users to easily search inside the content of the files stored on the appliance using actual keywords rather than just file names.
Another key element of these solutions is the wide range of supported protocols, including Microsoft, Linux, Apple, FTP, TFTP, HTT, HTTPS, WebDAV, Windows DFS and SNMP.
The baby of the StorCenter family is the ix2-200 Cloud Edition (2-6TB) which features 3-step setup, remote access worldwide, peer-to-peer torrent support, QuikTransfer button to move or replicate data, user replaceable HDDs, auto HDD spin-down and, for the electronic security industry, IP surveillance camera support.
Next is the ix4-200d Cloud Edition (4-12TB), which offers RAID and UPS support, can handle PC, Mac and Linux clients, and features user-replaceable hard drives, print sharing, user quotas, Windows Active Directory support and device-to-device data replication. This unit too, supports IP surveillance cameras.
Then there’s the StorCenter ix12-300r (4-8TB) network storage array with hot-swap drives, dual hot-swap power supplies and redundant variable speed hot-swap fans. The ix12 has Windows active directory support, simultaneous NAS file-level and iSCSI block-level access, as well as Windows DFS, WebDAV and VLAN capabilities. This unit also features remote support via email notification and web access, as well as that IP security camera support.
Now we move on to the Px4-300d (0-14TB) solutions with built-in personal Cloud technology. This unit has a high performance dual core Intel Atom processor, optional solid state drives, 2GB system memory, dual GbE NIC’s, USB 3.0 port, hot-swappable drives, storage pools with RAID expansion and migration and hot spares, and an embedded Axis Communications video surveillance solution.
Also boasting built-in Personal Cloud technology is the px6-300d (0-18TB) which features the same dual core Atom processor, the option of SSDs, 2GB memory, dual GbE NICs, USB 3.0, iSCSI persistent reservation, hotswappable drives, storage pools with RAID expansion, migration and hot spares. The px6-300d has the same Axis Communications video surveillance solutions.
Lastly there’s the StorCenter px4-300r (0-12TB), which is the highest specified solution in this clan. You get the same Personal Cloud technology, a high performance Intel Celeron E1500 Dual Core processor running at 2.2GHz, with 2GB RAM processor, optional SSD drives, an optional redundant power supply, dual GbE NICs, iSCSI persistent reservation, hot swappable drives, storage pools with RAID expansion, migration and hot spares and an embedded Axis video surveillance solutions with support for up to 12 IP cameras.
In terms of general specifications the px4-300r has a 1U form factor and occupies less than 20 inches of depth allowing it to slot into shallow racks. There are 4 3.5-inch Hot Swap SATA-II Hard Disk Drives and/or Solid State Drives. RAID options include 0, 1, 10, 5, and 5+1 (hot spare).
On the comms side are 2 RJ45 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet ports, LAN standards including IEEE 802.3, IEEE 802.3u, there are 3 USB 2.0 ports (to connect external HDD, printers, UPS, Bluetooth dongle)4 PCIe slots and up to 256 iSCSI LUNS.
According to Iomega’s technical sales engineer, Daryl Sin, of the family, the PX-4 and PX-6 are the company’s next-gen products and scale from 4TB to 18TB with the rack mount versions of these models going up to 26TB.
“The operating system is EMC LiveWire and we have a web interface so these units can support cloud applications like EMC’s Mozy online remote backup solutions,” he explains.
“This connects to Amazon too, so if there’s ever a problem with HDDs you can restore your data. We can also mirror PX units – which is a nice solution for remote locations.”
According to SIN, the IX2 2-bay unit and the IX4 4-bay are Iomega’s desktop units.
“Features with these solutions include support for ISCSI, NFS, CIFS, VMWARE, Citrix virtualisation solutions and support for SATA and RAID. Pretty much all our products have the same connectivity and compatibility features but they change in capacity.
“The rack mount solutions have power supply redundancy, HDD redundancy and SSDs, while the px12s can do storage tiering – it’s a broad cross-section of storage solutions – our customers are requesting more functions – more capability.”
“The rack mount solutions have power supply redundancy, HDD redundancy and SSDs, while the px12s can do storage tiering – it’s a broad cross-section of storage solutions – our customers are requesting more functions – more capability.”
