NetSwap NS500 NAS by Highly Reliable Systems

Highly Reliable Systems, Inc. announce the NetSwap NS500 addition to the NetSwap product family, with the recent update of coud-friendly NetSwap version 2.14 firmware bringing the ability to run VMs (optional Utility OS) and RAID types (0, 1 , N-Way, and 5, 6 and 10) ^(*).

Because of the recent announcement of the NetSwap Dashboard software, many customers have sought the advantages of the NetSwap platform without requiring the use of our Highly-Removable Drives at all of their installations. For example, sites where smaller NetSwaps are replicating over the internet to a central location have created a desire for a higher storage density tennant for a lower price on the NetSwap platform.

The NS500 embodies these desires but for less cost than its larger sibling the NS600 and in a mini-Tower footprint rather than a 2U rackmount. First, a capacity of up to 24TB in a Mini-tower. Second, an MSRP of $1,099. When equipped with three off-the shelf 4TB HDDs, the total system cost is about $380 less expensive than an equally equipped NetSwap NC300.

The NS500 can go up to 24TB whereas the NC300 is limited to 16TB presently. The NS500’s service bays are easier to install dealer or end-user supplied HDDs allowing for quick changes in capacity or performance as the need arises without the need for tools or any disassembly.

The NS500 makes an economical and flexible target for replication jobs from other NetSwaps. The whole system can be easily managed with the new free NetSwap Dashboard.

But what makes the NS500 offering special is that the company has prepared an optional (purchased separately) VM ‘Utility OS’ which is an installation of Windows Essentials designed to run ShadowProtect’s Image Manager software. The purpose of this is to allow a NetSwap which is running the Utility OS, to receive Shadowprotect incrementals and consolidate and verify those images.

Multiple backup images may be held on the NS500 and the single SP Image Manager software can maintain them all.

NetSwap VM enabled firmware should be able to run most VMs that can run on the XEN VM platform which supports file disk image formats RAW, VHD, VHDX, VMDK, VDI and ISO ^(**).

^(*) NS500 only has three bays, minimum of four are required for RAID6 and RAID-10.
^(**) Although running since 2014, the NetSwap VM offering is still considered beta due to the number of installations.