Nexsan adds new Unity NV4000 for distributed and small enterprises

Nexsan upgrades the low end of its unified storage portfolio with the Unity NV4000, which is aimed at small and medium enterprises as well as distributed enterprises, and which also adds some new software capabilities.

Today, storage vendor Nexsan, a long-time provider of enterprise-class storage solutions, is announcing the Unity NV4000, their new entry level offering. It is specifically purpose-built for today’s performance-hungry and security-conscious environments.

“The NV4000 represents a new commitment to R&D for the company,” said Vincent Phillips, Nexsan’s CEO.  “We are super-excited about this product.”

The NV1000 represents the new entry level product for the Nexsan Unity line, which together with the E-Series and the Assurion line, make up the portfolio. It is designed to bring next-generation unified storage to small- and midmarket enterprises without compromising on reliability, scalability or affordability. The NV1000 delivers high-speed all-flash and hybrid storage with support for file, block and object protocols. It is designed to manage mixed workloads with ease – from virtualization and backup to media workflows and video surveillance – simplifying complex IT environments while offering enterprise-class protection.

“Unity is our all-in-one storage solution, and the NV4000 line is for organizations that needs to get the biggest bang for their buck,” Phillips noted. “It is the most cost-effective offering in the Nexsan Unity line.”

The NV10000 is the high end of the Unity portfolio.

“This larger unit is employed in the larger enterprises,” Phillips said. “We won a major competition at a large cancer center with this against two mainstream competitors who were not able to meet this customer’s requirements,”

Phillips described the NV6000 as the company’s midmarket workhouse offering.

“We introduced the NV6000 a year ago, and while it is used for all kinds of customer workloads, but one that we see it consistently being used is a backup target for Veeam and Commvault, and other backup software vendors,” Phillips stated. The main use cases are media and entertainment, primary and secondary storage, and digital video.”

The NV4000 is the latest entry in the Unity family.

“It is an enterprise class product but is designed for the enterprise at the edge and for smaller enterprises but is priced for smaller enterprises,” Phillips said. “It does this while providing the same connectivity and flexibility as our bigger systems. It has the same features and functions as our prior models, but it’s a more cost-effective product.”

“The NV4000 has the same connectivity and flexibility as its bigger sisters,” Phillips said. “We saw with launch of the  NV10000 and the NV 6000 that customers wanted something that was a little bit smaller and a little more cost-effective, but with the same features and functions, and that’s why we introduced this one. Unlike the cloud, it does this for the life of the product, even as you grow. We support hybrid models as well for enterprises who want to mix cloud and on-prem.”

The NV1000 business was stimulated when Arcserve announced it was ending sales of its Arcserve Cloud Services and Arcserve OneXafe Solo offerings, who informed MSPs that February 12 was the last day these technologies would be sold, with the last day of distribution scheduled March 8, and support for those products scheduled to end July 31.

“When ArcServe dropped their OneXafe, it was just really good timing for us and the Nexsan Unity became a great OneXafe replacement in many of our markets,” said Judy Kaldenberg, SVP of Sales and Marketing at Nexsan.

The NV4000 debuts with a new 7.2 software release that is also being rolled out across the entire Unity NV-Series.

“With the 7.2 release, we have added two new features, that existing customers as well as new customers and take advantage of,” Phillips said. Every NV-Series model ships with the complete software suite—immutable snapshots, S3 object locking, encryption, inline compression, replication, and sophisticated audit tools.

“There is also a new Cloud Connector with no per-feature license fees which allows you to automatically sync files and directories with leading cloud providers, such as AWS S3, Azure and the Unity Object store, for hybrid or multi-cloud workflows,” Phillips said. Users gain the ability to view file access by user through the SMB protocol through detailed operations including reads, writes and modifications; and enhanced audit trails, which support faster investigations and improved compliance with data governance mandates.

“This makes this a stellar candidate for enterprises with cloud enterprises or apps,” Phillips said.

The other new feature is the SMB file access audit.

“This allows the admin to view by user using the SMB protocol,” Phillips stated.

“The NV4000 also lets the customer choose between hardware encryption of the drive using the SSDs or they can use the more cost-effective software encryption,” Phillips noted.

The NV4000 boasts up to 737TB raw flash capacity and 500K IOPs with Nexsan’s FASTier SSD caching for lightning-fast responsiveness. It supports both all-flash and hybrid setups across 24 bays, with SAN, NAS and S3 object storage in a single solution. It is PCI-compliant with TLS 1.2, AES encryption for data at rest and in transit, and robust access auditing for regulatory readiness. Finally, it is proven compatible as part of the Milestone Hardware Partner Verification for the Milestone XProtect solution.

“This is a more affordable alternative to cloud storage,” Phillips concluded.