Intel Offers Home, Small Biz NAS Storage

Intel's Entry Storage System SS4200 Family aims to offer affordable NAS storage for small businesses, home offices, and home networks.

Intel is betting the demand for data storage in small businesses, home offices, and the typical home network will be increasing by leaps and bounds—particularly in the latter case as consumers embrace ever-growing digital video and music collections, encouraged by things like Windows Home Server). So Intel is introducing its Entry Storage System SS4200 family of network attached storage (NAS) devices, offering gigabit Ethernet, an SATA port for storage expansion, and compatibility with both Windows and Macintosh systems.

“Intel brings an easy and affordable storage solution to the small office and home with our new Intel SS4200x,” said Intel general manager of storage Mike Wall, in a statement. “We’ve taken the performance advantage and power efficiency of Intel Architecture processors to enable system builders to deliver solutions with the right combination of performance, simplicity and value.”

Under the hood, Intel’s SS4200s pack a 1.6 GHz Celeron processor, 512 MB of RAM, and a 250 Watt power supply. The units support up to four 3.5-inch SATA hard drives (with tool-free access), which at the moment means they max out at abou 1 TB in capacity. However, the units also offer our USB 2.0 connectors for attaching additional storage, and gigabit Ethernet for attaching to the local network. Users can connect to the system using just about any Web browser (ranging from IE and Firefox through Safari, Opera, Konqueror, Windows Mobile, along with the Wii and PSP browsers) and offers Mac and Windows backup services via EMC’s Retrospect. The SS4200s also support uPnP AV/DLNA for connecting to media, including the Xbox 360, the PS3, Roku, Apple’s iTunes and Front Row, and PSP services. The units also offer RAID support and email reporting.

Two models—the SS4200EHW and SS4200-E will be available in December at retail prices starting at $500.