Dell has announced storage systems designed to change the economics of storage for small and medium businesses by bringing enterprise-class capabilities to more affordable price points and helping customers scale operations as storage needs increase.

The new products span both the Dell/EMC and Dell PowerVault product lines to provide a comprehensive and cost-effective storage solution for primary storage and backup.

"Small and medium businesses today are seeing the same challenge of managing significant data growth with flat budgets that large businesses started to see a few years ago. Our mission is to help customers balance this equation," said Darren Thomas, vice president and general manager for Dell's storage business. "We are delivering capabilities that were historically out of reach for one of the fastest-growing customer segments - small and medium businesses."

New from Dell/EMC is the CX3-10, an entry-level storage area network (SAN) array with innovative data protection and availability. Supporting iSCSI and Fibre Channel hosts, this array extends the reach of the enterprise-class UltraScale architecture to small and medium businesses. iSCSI is a key technology in Dell's strategy to change to the economics of storage. iSCSI-based SANs provide significant cost advantages over traditional Fibre Channel SANs - with lower fabric, implementation and maintenance costs.

The Dell/EMC CX3-10 simplifies storage operations by bundling necessary software for failover and management, as well as offering an all-SATA drive configuration for customers seeking bulk storage. Combined with Dell PowerEdge servers, the flexibility, robust feature set and price make the Dell/EMC CX3-10 an ideal platform for server virtualization.

Within its PowerVault line, Dell introduced two new tape libraries - the PowerVault TL 2000 and the PowerVault TL4000. For most customers, tape backup and archiving are integral to a disaster recovery plan. The PowerVault TL2000 and PowerVault TL4000 deliver simplified data protection and the benefits of tape automation at the price points historically held by autoloaders.

Using these products together - the Dell/EMC CX3-10 and the PowerVault tape libraries - allows SMB customers to easily consolidate and simplify storage environments while meeting growing capacity requirements. These systems help customers build reliable, centralized solutions for storing, backing up, recovering, and archiving critical data.

Each of these products can be combined with a range of Dell services to help customers plan, implement and maintain the IT infrastructure. For example, the Dell/EMC Maintenance offering is designed to help keep storage systems current and healthy. It includes periodic health checks, software and system updates and upgrades, and how-to assistance for configuring or installing SAN components.

The Dell/EMC CX3-10 is ideal for budget-conscious customers who require high availability for increasing data capacity and upgradeability for investment and data protection.

Key features and benefits of the Dell/EMC CX3-10 include:
Multi-Fabric Connectivity: iSCSI and Fibre Channel host connectivity designed for maximum deployment flexibility and highly efficient storage consolidation.
Simplified Management: Simple task-based management of storage via the new Navisphere Task Bar.
Advanced Data Protection: Supports a full suite of data replication applications for local snapshots and remote mirroring.
Configuration Flexibility: Mix Fibre Channel and SATA disk drives to meet tiered storage requirements or deploy an all-SATA configuration for a low cost entry point with maximum scalability.
Streamlined Deployment: Using Dell's build-to-order factory capabilities, customers can custom-order SAN-ready Dell PowerEdge Servers with a broad range of Fibre Channel host bus adapter cards and iSCSI-ready network interface cards factory installed and tested, eliminating several steps in SAN installation.

Available now, the hardware pricing for the Dell/EMC CX3-10 starts around $22,000.

For more information, see dell.com/storage. ENS