Iomega has become the latest company to announce a network-attached storage (NAS) box with built-in wireless access.

The notable feature of the new Iomega StorCenter Wireless Network Storage is its 1 Terabyte capacity, easily the largest such capacity available in an affordable wireless NAS.

The storage side of the product consists of four 250GB drives, which can be configured in RAID 0, 1 or 5, depending on the balance of performance and data protection required.

Iomega has added to this 802.11b/g wireless, a Gigabit Ethernet interface, and dual USB ports for adding extra drives or a printer hitched to the internal print server. Wireless security is the standard WEP/WPA, while the company bundles its own entry-level backup software.

The Storcenter includes support across a range of platforms, including Windows 98SE/Me/2000/XP, Mac OS X 10.2.7 or higher, and Linux distributions Red Hat 9, Mandrake 10, Debian 3.0, Gentoo, FedoraCore 3.

The US$900 price tag should gain it custom among its intended SME targets, though admins will still have to weigh up the convenience of wireless access as against the lower cost and greater security of a wired equivalent. With WPA encryption set, every storage client will need to have this feature configured individually.

"Network storage devices are gaining in popularity with small businesses and advanced home users for a simple reason: they meet a growing need for anywhere, anytime access to data," said Iomega's Joseph Saroukhanian

The number of vendors offering wireless storage products is still small, with D-Link's DSM-G600 one of the few rivals. That product is designed for low-capacity storage, however, and would normally be considered for home users only. The Storcenter is the first to attempt to sell the idea at an affordable price to the mid-market.