LaCie ships 36TB Windows NAS appliance

LaCie has introduced a network storage appliance for backup or file sharing in corporate environments.

Available now, the 12big Rack Storage Server is based on Microsoft's Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 platform and can be configured with up to 12 hot-pluggable serial-attached SCSI (SAS) drives for 9TB up to 36TB of storage capacity.

As its name suggests, the 12big Rack Storage Server comes in a 2U rack-mount chassis. Inside, the unit is powered by a quad-core Intel Xeon processor with 4GB RAM and four Gigabit Ethernet ports to connect to the outside world.

This specification makes the unit powerful enough to accommodate up to 250 users, according to LaCie, with the 12big Rack Storage Server supporting Raid 5 protection as standard and block or file protocols such as NFS, SMB and iSCSI.

It can also be expanded, with five PCIe slots available for further Ethernet, Fibre Channel, or InfiniBand adapters, plus the option to integrate it into a JBOD array for scalability up to 144TB.

With Windows Storage Server, 12big Rack Storage Server supports Microsoft's Distributed File System Replication (DFS-R), allowing the unit to remotely back up to another storage device on another site.

LaCie said its Gold Protection Plan provides customers with a five-year warranty on both drives and components in the 12big Rack Storage Server.

Pricing starts at £8,779 for the 9TB model, rising to £14,629 for the 36TB unit.