WD has expanded its product portfolio addressing small- and medium-sized businesses (SMB) with the addition of WD Sentinel RX4100, its first 1U rack-mount small business storage server.

"Following upon the success of our first SMB storage server, the WD Sentinel™ DX4000, we are responding to customer and partner requests to expand our portfolio with a solution for customers that have a rack based computing infrastructure," says Thomas Gallivan, vice president of marketing for WD's SMB solutions group.

The WD Sentinel RX4100 lets SMBs to centralize and store all of their documents and digital assets in one secure location. While installation and setup is simple and intuitive, the product delivers enterprise-class features such as RAID protection, automatic server-based backup and restoration capabilities, redundant network and power options, as well as integrated network attached storage (NAS) functionality and iSCSI SAN capabilities for virtualized network environments, says Gallivan.


The WD Sentinel RX4100 comes with Microsoft Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials operating system and includes the software to back-up 25 Windows and Mac OS client computers in the network. The product features pre-installed WD hard drives, factory configured in RAID 5 for data protection against drive failure.

Backing up and restoring stored data is automated with options for complete bare-metal backup and restoration of the entire system, as well as incremental backups and restoration for specific files. Mac OS systems can back up to WD Sentinel RX4100 using Time Machine backup utility. In the event of a accidental data loss or computer failure, WD Sentinel's restore function finds lost files, and then quickly restores them to their previous location, or allows the customers to restore the entire computer image, including the OS, program files, data and settings.   

WD Sentinel RX4100 is certified to be compatible with a variety of operating systems, including Windows XP/Vista/7/8 and Mac OS X 10.6 and higher. It's available with populated drive configurations in 8TB, 12TB and 16TB capacities, through select U.S. distributors and online at the wdstore.com.

The manufacturer's suggested retail price is US$1,899.00 USD for 8TB, $1,999 for 12TB and $2,349 for the 16 TB configurations. WD Sentinel RX4100 SMB storage servers are covered by a three-year limited warranty.