The new ReadyNAS NVX offers home offices, workgroups and small businesses double the performance of Netgear NV+ storage units, and supports NAS file services and iSCSCI SAN application services as well as Apple's Time Machine.Drew Meyer, Netgear's director of storage product marketing, explained that unlike the home-office-oriented ReadyNAS NV+ line, the new NVX units are "truly business class, not pro-sumer, combining Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Storage Area Networking (SAN) in a single unified architecture with 2-port, dual-Gigabit Ethernet connectivity. The entry-level small business device can be used for local file sharing, simple application servers using the iSCSI interface, remote access and data replication, as well as backup. Meyer said that means the ReadyNAS NVX can let small businesses "get rid of servers that aren't really servers."

"We think SMBs are entitled to performance," Meyer added, and attributed the NVX's increased performance to a switch to Intel architecture from the old SPARC ASIC.

Meyer said that advanced users are already using Netgear's forums to discuss how to use the units for file sharing and virtualization over NFS (Network File System) . That means you don't have to make hard choices about the future now for budgetary reasons, he said. The guy in a small business who's not an IT manager -- but has to fill that role anyway -- "doesn't have to worry about the alphabet soup," Myers said.

Pricing for a two-TB unit begins at $1,499, and ReadyNAS NVX can hold up to 4 1TB drives ($1,999). It works with Windows, Macintosh and Linux/Unix systems, and supports Apple's Time Machine to backup multiple Macs to a single location.

Like all ReadyNAS devices, the NVX includes RAID fault tolerance, local USB backups, online backups, and offsite replication to other ReadyNAS systems. And it can use the embedded ReadyNAS Vault option to automatically archive to an Internet datacenter.

The Netgear ReadyNAS NVX.