Western Digital has announced it will be offering a small-office storage server product based on Microsoft’s Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials software. WD plans to combine their storage hardware and industry knowledge with Microsoft’s operating system to deliver a compelling product for the small business market.
Western Digital has announced it will be offering a small-office storage server product based on Microsoft’s Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials software. WD plans to combine their storage hardware and industry knowledge with Microsoft’s operating system to deliver a compelling product for the small business market.
While details and timing are thin at this point, WD did say the product "will simplify connection, protection and collaboration online for small businesses and the information technology services organizations that support them." WD didn’t specify the drive count, but it’s likely the NAS will be a 4-6 bay unit along the lines of competitive offerings from Synology, Netgear and others.
On the software side, Windows Storage Server 2008 provides a robust operating system for NAS units and gets WD to market faster than creating their own custom firmware/operating system. Out of the box Storage Server includes features like file deduplication, iSCSI software target, virtualization, remote desktop support and management features like active directory support.
