Overland Storage Unveils New NAS/iSCSI, Tape Appliances
The company also unveiled its biggest NEO tape library in a move to capitalize on what it sees as new opportunities from Oracle's acquisition of Sun, which was the source of the StorageTek brand of tape libraries.
The new SnapServer N2000 scales to up to 144 TBs of storage in a 2U, 12-drive rackmount appliance, said Drew O'Brien, product marketing manager for Overland Storage's Snap line.
Customers can ask solution providers to configure the N2000 with SAS or SATA hard drives in any combination, and can specify either enterprise-class drives for performance or desktop-class drives for lower cost, O'Brien said.
The N2000 is not Overland's first combination NAS/SAN appliance. However, O'Brien said, earlier models put only four hard drives in a 1U space.
The N2000 is currently available with a list price of $4,999 for a 4-TB configuration with four 1-TB hard drives, or $5,999 for an 8-TB configuration with four 2-TB drives, O'Brien said. However, customers who order before late October can purchase the 8-TB version for the 4-TB price, he said.
In addition to giving solution providers 35 points of margin, including 15 points for registered deals, Overland is also providing a $500 rebate to partners on each unit sold, O'Brien said.
"We're offering an attractive price and good margins," he said. "It's a great story to tell."
At those prices, the N2000 should be able to help solution providers compete better with more consumer-oriented storage products commonly used by smaller businesses, O'Brien said.
For instance, the N2000 offers security and iSCSI volume integration under Windows environments, and provides platform security across multiple customer platforms and protocols. It also provides the ability to scale and automate by letting customers plug expansion bays into the back of the appliance.
"Companies who traditionally relied on products from consumer storage providers can look to Overland Storage for more sophisticated solutions that support their business requirements at the same price as a consumer NAS," he said.
Next: New Tape Libraries To Compete With Oracle
Overland is also now shipping its largest tape library, the NEO 8000E, in a move to help business customers concerned about the future of the Sun StorageTek tape libraries in the wake of Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems.
The NEO 8000E supports up to 3 petabytes of LTO-5 tape capacity and a transfer rate of up to 24 TBs per hour, said Peri Grover, director of product marketing for the company's tape business.
Contrary to popular belief, Overland is actually seeing a slow uptick in its tape library business, with new opportunities opening in the wake of Oracle's acquisition of Sun, Grover said.
"I think this is opening doors for resellers they didn't have before," she said. "At the enterprise level, the trend is to sell direct. We don't sell direct. Everything we do goes through the reseller channel."
To help kick off sales of the NEO 8000E, customers who purchase a base model with 100 tape slots enabled actually get an additional 400 slots enabled free-of-charge. "That's a $36,000 value," Grover said.
Resellers selling the NEO 8000E get a margin of about 30 points, with another 20 points for pre-registered deals, Grover said.
In addition, Overland Storage is providing a spif of $500 to a sales rep who sells one unit. If the rep sells a second unit, he or she gets a $1000 spif, as well as an additional $500 spif on the first unit, she said. "This makes it a really good offering for resellers," she said.