iSCSI’s value proposition has always been lower cost than Fibre Channel SANs. StarWind Software is taking that value proposition to new levels with a free version of its iSCSI target software.

Free iSCSI isn’t new. Most of the iSCSI initiators are free (including Microsoft’s) and a few vendors offer free iSCSI target software. However, most of those are limited in the number of iSCSI connections you can have and/or the amount of capacity supported.

In contrast, StarWind’s free iSCSI target software supports an unlimited number of iSCSI connections and an impressive 2TB of capacity.

Of course, you don’t get StarWind’s thin provisioning, CDP, snapshots, mirroring or replication functionality for free, but unlimited connections and support for 2TB is a great deal. The software installs on any 32-bit or 64-bit Windows server, and turns the server into a shared storage SAN device.

But wait, there’s more. The software supports virtual server environments such as VMware ESX and ESXi (and can run inside a VM) and Microsoft’s Hyper-V, as well as server clustering.

To grab a copy of the software, visit the StarWind iSCSI Target Free Version Download Site.

For those not familiar with StarWind: The company has been selling its iSCSI software since 2003, and claims to have more than 1,000 customers that paid for its software and more than 15,000 that have downloaded a previous free version (which only supported 2GB of capacity).

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