IBM launches NetApp NAS appliances

BIG BLUE is shipping midrange NAS appliances next month based on Network Appliance technology.

Seven months after launching entry level NetApp NAS boxes, CRN.com reports that IBM will ship the N5500, a version of NetApp's FAS3050 (with 84 TB on 336 Fibre Channel hard drives - or 168TB on SATA drives). And the IBM N5200 is the rebranded FAS 3020, with up to 168 hard drives for of 50 TB of FC storage or 84 Tbytes of SATA storage.

IBM also is providing NetApp's SnapVault backup software and its SnapMirror data mirroring software.µ