EMC unveils new features for home, small-business NAS drive

EMC Corp.'s Iomega Corp. division Tuesday unveiled new features for the Iomega StorCenter ix2 network-attached storage (NAS) drive, including Web access and peer-to-peer file sharing.

The ix2 NAS appliance, which is aimed at home and small-business network storage market, comes in 1TB and 2TB models.

Jonathan Huberman, president of Iomega and the Consumer and Small Business Products Division at EMC, said the ix2 allows users to enter a personalized Web address into any browser to securely download and upload files. Users can change the settings on the ix2, such as adding users and folders from any Web-enabled device.

The file-sharing service is free for the first year and US$9.95 for every year thereafter. Custom domain names, such as www.yourfamilyname.com, are also available for an additional charge.

"With the simplest setup process in the industry, the ix2 not only provides home and small-business network storage users with such important features as media serving, Bluetooth and video surveillance capabilities, now we've added remote access," Huberman said in a statement. "Users can connect to their files from anywhere in the world, as well as the new standard in peer-to-peer file sharing."

The upgraded ix2 NAS drives also allow torrent downloads for peer-to-peer file sharing that facilitates download management directly to the StorCenter ix2.

Other upgrades to ix2 include "Folder Quotas," which allow users to set a maximum capacity for shared storage folders to prevent any of the folders from taking up too much space. For example, if a folder exceeds 90% of its capacity, the ix2 sends a message so that the folder size can be adjusted.

Iomega also included the Apple File Protocol on the updated NAS drive, enabling file-sharing for Mac users.

The Iomega StorCenter ix2 for home users comes with built-in support for Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) and Digital Living Network Alliance-certified devices, so it can store and play back multimedia files -- music, photos, videos and other digital content -- from PCs and laptops as well as from Sony PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles.

The ix2 comes with data encryption technology from EMC's RSA Security Inc. unit and EMC Retrospect Express backup software. The NAS drive also includes MozyHome online backup, which provides 2GB of free online storage for connected PC and Mac computers, with the option to upgrade to unlimited online backup storage for $4.95 per month per computer.

The 1TB StorCenter ix2 drive retails for US$299.95; the 2TB model is available for US$479.95.

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