IomegaStorcenterIx2
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Iomega StorCenter ix2 and EZ Media and Backup Center fill your lives with terabytes
Mo' media, mo' problems. Fortunately, Iomega's got you covered with its latest set of back-up devices. The StorCenter ix2 is pitched at smaller businesses wanting content sharing and data protection goodness. Arriving in configurations up to 6TB, this new version will play nice with cloud back-up services from the likes of Mozy and Amazon, as well as Iomega's in-house Personal Cloud system. The StorCenter ix2 can also be further expanded through external USB hard drives, with the disk-less model priced at $200, with single disk systems arriving in 1TB ($250), 2TB ($350) and 3TB ($450) configurations. Fully-populated drives will start from $420 for 2TB, while 4TB is $579.99 and $770 will net you 6TB of space. All sizes will be available starting February 2012. The EZ Media and Backup Center wants to settle down in your home and fulfill all your streaming media and cloud storage needs. It includes support for TimeMachine and Bittorrent, with Active Folders that can automate media uploads to social networks and Youtube. DLNA connectivity also ensures it'll connect with your games consoles and HDTV. Prices start at $220 for 1TB, with 2TB ($300) and 3TB ($400) models available for the requisite price bump starting in February. PR is after the break.
Iomega announces next-gen NAS appliance for backup and media management
As data backup and media servers become more prevalent, they also become more complicated, with ever more devices to sync and ways to store information. Today, Iomega released a new NAS appliance that can serve as both a backup device and a media server with a view to streamlining the setup process for home or small business users, while implementing a few features that are more commonly seen in larger-scale networked servers. The newest iteration of Iomega's NAS appliance line, the dual-drive StorCenter ix2-200, has many of the features that you'd want to see in a media server or a backup target. As a backup device, the StorCenter can be set up as a Time Machine target for Macs and for remote access, so that the user can manage and upload or download files from anywhere with an Internet connection. It has three USB ports that allow direct interaction with other devices, such as external drives or a printer (the unit can act as a print server). Iomega's put quite a few other bells and whistles into this NAS. The unit can stream media to Xbox 360 & PS3 consoles, and to many iTunes-compatible music devices. It's also Bluetooth-capable, allowing a smart phone to sync with it, but this requires the separate purchase of a USB-Bluetooth dongle. The StorCenter is VMware-certified as an iSCSI and NFS storage device, supports direct streaming from up to five Axis network cameras, and can even serve as a BitTorrent client. One of the more interesting features for backup use is the device-to-device replication. The StorCenter can be set up to perform any number of "copy jobs" to sync data automatically to and froms various devices and files at scheduled intervals. It also has a QuikTransfer button on its front, to which you can attach any number of copy jobs that will be performed automatically when pressed, rather than having to wait for scheduled maintenance. For example, if you regularly import videos to your computer and want them backed up, synced to the computer upstairs, and put on another external hard drive you carry with you, you can plug the drive into the StorCenter, press the copy button, and voila! It's all done at once! (Of course, you have to set it up that way first. It's a button, not a mind-reader.)
