Back to storage: I learned this week of a couple of interesting new products, one in the mainframe space, the other oriented to small and midsize enterprises.

IBM is one of the vendors, but not for the mainframe stuff. Instead, Big Blue announced yet another storage array, the IBM System Storage DS4200 Express Model. "Express" refers to a promise of easy setup, but don't be surprised if you get a twinge of deja'vu when looking at the unit photo (http://weblog.infoworld.com/thestoragenetwork/archives/DS4200_02.html), because the box looks much like its DS4700 or DS4800 siblings.

All the units are built around the same flexible architecture by LSI Logic, but what's in the box can be quite different. In fact, the DS4200 connects via 4Gb FC to dual active controllers, each with 1GB of cache. This 3U box can mount as many as 16 SATA drives at 500 GB each; that gives you 8TB of nominal capacity, but you can add up to six expansion units and pile up 112 drives.

Compare that with a recent array from NetApp (http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/06/29/79686_27OPstorinside_1.html) that stops at just 6TB capacity, and it's difficult to believe that these two products target the same SMB customers.

The price is also different. The DS4200 starts at about US$11,500 without drives, but includes dual controllers, array management software, and a promising three years of next-day, business hours maintenance. Did I ever say that comparing the price of storage devices was easy?