Designed for small and midsize businesses, the Dell PowerVault NX1950 comes loaded with Microsoft Windows Unified Data Storage Server 2003, offering file server and IP storage-area network (SAN) support based on the iSCSI protocol. The PowerVault NX1950 comes in single or two-node cluster configurations and includes a redundant back-end storage array -- the new Dell MD1000 -- scaling up to 45 serial-attached SCSI (SAS) drives and 13.5TB capacity. The MD1000 supports up to four host servers.

Microsoft obtained the iSCSI driver for the array from its acquisition of String Bean Software in June (see "").

The array also supports CIFS (Windows) and NFS (Linux, Unix, and Macintosh) protocols, and it has security and mapping functions familiar to Windows and Unix administrators. The NX1950 also comes with Windows Storage Server 2003 R2 capabilities, such as single-instance storage, full indexed text search, distributed file services, and management of user quotas, file screening and storage reports.

Eric Endebrock, senior manager of Dell Enterprise Storage, said the array's SAS drives offer a combined 92,000 I/O per second from four SAS ports. Endebrock said the NX1950 is designed to compete against Network Appliance Inc.'s FAS250 and FAS270 arrays.

"We're getting great performance for a cluster that can be very highly available," Endebrock said. "It's very affordable for customers to get into using the serial-attached SCSI drives.