Taiwan-based storage specialist Thecus has today upped the ante in the network-attached storage (NAS) market with the launch of its seven-bay N7700.
The new addition to the Thecus range provides a whopping seven SATA hard-drive bays, allowing for up to 7TB of storage - that's enough to archive over 800 dual-layer DVDs. Just in case you do happen to run out of room, there's an eSATA port allowing for the installation of one more external drive - though, sadly, the eighth drive can't be combined with the internal RAID array.
On the hardware front, you'll find Intel's 1.86GHz Celeron processor and 1GB of DDR memory. There's the usual selection of RAID modes, including RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, and JBOD, and Thecus has thrown in RAID expansion and RAID level migration so you'll be able to add drives to an existing RAID without powering down.
There's also support for iSCSI initiators - allowing for enterprise users to access the N7700 as a direct-attached storage device via the Internet or a LAN. If you're willing to shell out big bucks, you'll find that the device is stackable, too - allowing for up to six N7700 boxes to be hooked up to one another and managed via the primary box.
There's no word on pricing, but with Thecus' popular five-bay N5200 retailing at over Ā£500, you can expect this one to be priced at a greater premium.
Official product page: Thecus.com
Official press release: Thecus Unleashes N7700 7-Bay NAS Server