Storage Solutions Priced Right for SMBs

Our sampling of storage options provides a taste of what's available for SMBs of any size or stripe.

By Sharon Florentine

At about $35 billion, the size of the storage hardware and services market for solution providers serving clients in the SMB space is mind-boggling. And there are just as many vendors with storage solutions as there are potential clients ready to snap them up.

"The market potential is unbelievably huge, rivaling that of the traditional enterprise," says Greg Schulz, founder and senior analyst with research firm StorageIO Group. "One reason the potential for the SMB market is huge is [its] sheer diversity," encompassing businesses in a range of sizes and industries.  Schulz also notes that there are opportunities for SMB solution providers even within large enterprises, since many remote and/or branch offices function like SMBs.

When targeting clients for storage sales, identify which size customer will bring the biggest bang for your marketing buck, says Schulz, and focus your efforts there.  "You have to tailor your approach, even with a product like storage, which everyone needs," he says. "You don't spend the money and time on a long-distance trip to sell a $1,000 piece of equipment."

If you have the staff for a direct-touch sales approach, that's fine, but it's crucial to keep perspective. "For the larger SMBs, sure, put feet on the street. For the lower end of the market, leverage your phone sales and your Web site," Shulz says. "Align the right technologies with your product [and] support offerings, aim for the right customers, and you've got it made."

Of course, you'll need hardware and software to round out the package. We've collected just a sampling of available storage products priced around or below $25,000 that have something for businesses of any size.

EMC CLARiiON AX4
EMC Corp.'s CLARiiON AX4 is a SAN solution designed for SMBs and branch offices. The AX4 is a VMware-certified solution, which is a key factor for midsize businesses looking to deploy virtualization in their data centers. Installation and management are simple with the included EMC Navisphere management software, and the solution can be customized to provide for file sharing, email, backup and recovery, and archiving. The AX4 offers iSCSI or Fibre Channel connectivity, and for smaller businesses, a 3TB capacity option. For midsize and larger organizations, the AX4 easily scales to 60TB, so you can add capacity and expand capabilities as the business grows. Pricing starts at $8,299. http://www.emc.com/

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