AMAX, a leading innovator of High Performance Computing (HPC), dynamic Enterprise IT, and custom Appliance Manufacturing solutions, has updated its storage optimized StorMax NAS product line with Windows Storage Server 2012, the most advanced Windows-based storage OS. The AMAX StorMax NAS series with Windows Storage Server 2012 introduces a host of new features designed to provide high-performance and reliable storage for virtualization applications, and flexible, cost-effective options for shared storage.

"As part of a network-attached storage appliance, Windows Storage Server 2012 helps to reduce the storage costs associated with building modern datacenters and private clouds by enhancing traditional file serving capabilities and leveraging robust, industry standard hardware," said James Huang, Product Marketing Manager, AMAX. "AMAX's enterprise-class NAS solutions based on Windows Storage Server 2012 are perfect for those looking to deploy highly reliable, high-performance shared storage for database needs, or for those looking to deploy a converged private cloud infrastructure with the ability to run either physical or virtual workloads."New features of StorMax NAS with Windows Storage Server 2012 not present in Server 2008 R2:

• Thin Provisioning - A feature that optimizes storage utilization by maximizing existing storage and reclaiming any unused space. It can identify thin provisioned LUNs and provide notifications for exceeding threshold and physical resource constraints.
• Data De-Duplication - Works at the volume level and stores more data in less physical space by using sub-file, variable-size chunking and compression to segment files into smaller chunks, and finally identifying duplicate chunks and maintaining only a single copy of each.
• ReFS - A new file system designed from the ground up with modern computing requirements in mind. It has a high degree of compatibility with the most common NTFS features but has high availability, resiliency and scalability features.

Windows Storage Server 2012 includes a robust range of file serving and storage capabilities that addresses heterogeneous computing environments, enables more efficient storage utilization and is delivered as a turnkey, file-based storage solution on open-architecture designed StorMax NAS hardware. Delivering a similar level of performance reliability as more expensive storage solutions, the StorMax NAS series offers unified storage with support for both file (SMB and NFS) and block (iSCSI) protocols, allows for a flexible mix of configurations and enables efficient storage utilization with thin provisioning and data de-duplication technologies. Organizations of all sizes will also benefit from higher levels of availability with transparent failover of applications and the ability to maintain clustered environments without service disruption -- features typically only seen in datacenter deployments but valuable to customers of all sizes.

AMAX StorMax NAS models with Windows Storage Server 2012 include:

• StorMax NS-22201r (24TB) - High IO Performance 2U 24x 2.5" Storage Server
• StorMax NS-32301r (64TB) - Flexible 3U 16x 3.5" Storage Server
• StorMax NS-42301r (96TB) - High Capacity 4U 24x 3.5" Storage Server
• StorMax NS-42302r (144TB) - Maximum Capacity 4U 36x 3.5" Storage Server