Imation announced Thursday that it is shipping the latest in its line of cartridge-based hard-disk drive (HDD) backup systems designed to meet the needs of small and medium-sized businesses (SMB).

The new RDX A8 Hard Disk Storage Library from Imation (NYSE: IMN) can hold as many as eight RDX cartridges of different capacities in its eight drive bays. RDX, which is short for removable disk technology, combines the portability, low cost, and ruggedness of a tape cartridge with the speed and random access of an HDD.

“Businesses and industries that consume large amounts of data, such as video production, broadcast and medical imaging services, need to store increasing quantities of data in a way that’s readily accessible and reliable,” Rusty Rosenberger, director of global product management and marketing for SMB business, said in a statement.

“With the RDX A8, users can quickly back up and instantly access their crucial data … giving them more operational agility and the ability to cost-effectively recover their data in the event of a disaster,” Rosenberger added.

The RDX A8, which is small enough to fit on a desktop, can hold up to 8 TB of HDD capacity in eight 1 TB drives, stored either sequentially in tape emulation mode or as separate addressable disks — sometimes referred to as “just a bunch of disks” or JBOD mode, according to Imation.

The library interfaces with customers’ networks via an iSCSI connection.

Additionally, the RDX A8 features sustained transfer rates of 75 MB per second.

In the future, Imation also plans to include expanded disk cartridge sizes, as well as enhanced cloud storage applications.

The RDX A8 starts at $3,395.

“This affordable multi-bay device supports data-intensive operations, such as centralized backups for disaster recovery and business continuity, accelerating and enabling cloud storage, and shuttling large data sets quickly,” the statement added.

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