QNAP Systems (http://www.quap.com) has expanded their Business Series Turbo NAS lineup with two new 1U rack-mounted, 4-drive models, the TS-459U-RP and TS-459U-SP.

These new models, with up to 8TB of storage (using 2TB hard drives), have been certified as compatible with VMware's vSphere4 (ESX 4.0) virtualization platform. VMware's vSphere is a cloud operating system that offers a way to reduce IT costs and increase responsiveness.

The TS-459U-RP and TS-459U-SP incorporate the Intel Atom D-510 1.66Ghz dual-core processor and feature 1GB of DDRII RAM. The new models are differentiated with the TS-459U-RP containing redundant power supplies. Should one power supply fail, the other will continue to supply the power for the entire system and alert the administrator via email or SMS to the failure.

The TS-459U-SP contains a single power supply, and can be upgraded to the –RP configuration with installation of a second power supply module, sold separately. Both models support RAID 0/1/5/5+ hot spare/6, and JBOD, with online RAID capacity expansion, online RAID level migration and RAID recovery.

Both models also feature 256-bit AES volume level encryption for maximum data security. The TS-459U-RP and TS-459U-SP models feature five USB ports (one front panel and four real panels) and two e-SATA ports for storage expansion and printer sharing. Both models support advanced features including DOM architecture with fail-safe dual OS, scheduled power on/off, Wake on LAN, and HDD S.M.A.R.T.

The new TS-459U-RP and TS-459U-SP Business Series Turbo NAS servers will be available later this month. Pricing hasn't been announced.