Dell Computer has introduced three devices that offload the backup of data from servers on Windows NT and Unix networks.
The devices, being resold under an OEM agreement with Network Appliance, come in different configurations for workgroup, departmental and enterprise environments.
The market for such network-attached storage devices is expected to reach $US5 billion by 2003, according to IDC.
The Dell 720N, 740N and 760N PowerVault filers have built-in 10/100M bit/sec Ethernet network adapters and link to disk subsystems via Fibre Channel or SCSI connections.
Dell's PowerVault filers ship with snapshot backup capability and support Cheyenne ARCserveIT or Seagate Backup Exec for traditional network backup. In snapshot backup, an image of the drive contents is taken at different points in time. In the event of a failure, users can roll back through the images to find the data they want.
The PowerVault filers also support remote mirroring, dubbed SnapMirror, which lets data be replicated and vaulted across a LAN or WAN.
The PowerVault filers will ship next month.