Imation Assembles a Storage ‘Portfolio’ for SMBs

Storage appliance maker Imation announced Monday that it has integrated new products as well as existing ones into a unified, tiered storage solution portfolio for small and medium businesses (SMB).

Imation (NYSE: IMN) made its announcement during the start of Storage Networking World (SNW) Fall 2011 in Orlando, Fla.

“[The portfolio includes] new Imation InfiniVault and Imation DataGuard multi-tiered data-archive and data-protection appliances, as well as the company’s existing Imation RDX removable hard disk storage and Linear Tape-Open (LTO) technologies,” according to a company statement. “The portfolio provides low-cost, compliant solutions for SMBs to better retain, retrieve and recover their data.”

The InfiniVault data-archive appliances come in four models – including the Imation InfiniVault 5, 35, 70 and DICOM. They are designed to suit various size and industry requirements and are currently available in the U.S.

Meanwhile, Imation’s DataGuard data-protection appliance provides disaster-tolerant backup using hard drives as well as removable RDX drives.

DataGuard appliances, which come in both tower and rack configurations, use RDX removable hard drives to retain backups and to seed the cloud infrastructure. They are designed to provide “a multi-layer data protection target within existing backup infrastructures,” the statement said.

The DataGuard appliances come in three models — the T5R, R4 and the R16 — and will be available early next year.

Imation’s portfolio also includes its line of RDX drives — the RDX A8 Storage Array and RDX USB 2.0 and 3.0 Internal and External Docks.

Finally, in November, Imation plans to ship new LTO drives that will be available in single tape drive configurations or as multiple drive library systems. The LTO systems include LTO-4 and LTO-5 HH SAS Tape Drives, and L1200 LTO 2U and L1400 LTO 4U Tape Libraries.

“Our new scalable storage solutions help SMBs cost-effectively embrace the rapidly expanding digital world, yet frees them up to run a productive business,” Ian Williams, Imation’s vice president global marketing and product management, said in a statement.

Stuart J. Johnston is a contributing editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals. Follow him on Twitter @stuartj1000.