The FalconStor NSS-S12 is a packaged offering based on FalconStor’s own SAN Disk Manager, a combination of operating system and SAN management toolkit. As a software company first, and a hardware company second, FalconStor has pulled together the hardware in the NSS-S12 to offer a unified solution for enterprises that don’t want to roll their own hardware.FalconStor Software’s NSS-S12Score: 3.7 out of 5 Editor’s note: This is a summary of our testing of this product, for a full rundown of how it fared in our testing across iSCSI SAN Server categories; please see our full coverage. The FalconStor NSS-S12 is a packaged offering based on FalconStor’s own SAN Disk Manager, a combination of operating system and storage-area network management toolkit. As a software company first, and a hardware company second, FalconStor has pulled together the hardware in the NSS-S12 to offer a unified solution for enterprises that don’t want to roll their own hardware.The NSS-S12 hardware is a 2U PC with 12 1,000GB SATA drives (a SAS version of the product is also available). The NSS-S12 also is not expandable and cannot implement a controller high-availability configuration; again, a different version of the product is used should you require those provisions. FalconStor’s software is definitely the jewel of the product, including unparalleled high level of support for snapshot operations, multi-site replication with bandwidth management and automatic scheduled reporting. The GUI and command-line interface were both fairly easy to use when it came to iSCSI configuration and operations.Where things broke down was in operating system integration. FalconStor definitely made an effort to “appliancize” its software on the NSS-S12 platform, but the company didn’t do that good of a job. For example, when we made a slight misstep in the Ethernet bonding configuration, it took several hours of technical support to get it fixed, including a remote access session by one of FalconStor’s network gurus. A similar integration problem lies in the Acera RAID controller, a built-in part of the NSS-S12 product, which is not connected to or controlled by the FalconStor GUI.Overall performance is about average for SATA-based servers. The main draw of the FalconStor product is the replication agents. If you want your SAN to be a primary part of a backup and recovery strategy, FalconStor offers wider application support in its replication tools than anyone else. FalconStor charges a relatively high premium for this support — the NSS-S12 had the highest cost per gigabyte of storage of any SATA-based server tested — but if you believe the most important part of an iSCSI server is the software, FalconStor may be worth the premium. Related content news Hitachi Vantara launches unified storage platform Virtual Storage Platform One provides on-premises and cloud storage of both structured and unstructured data. By Andy Patrizio Apr 26, 2024 2 mins Enterprise Storage Data Center analysis Extreme demos AI-based network assistant Extreme AI Expert can answer network questions, troubleshoot operations, and create alerts for conditions such as network degradation or Wi-Fi dead spots. By Michael Cooney Apr 25, 2024 4 mins Network Management Software news Cradlepoint unveils 5G SASE platform for mobile, distributed environments NetCloud SASE integrates cellular SD-WAN and security capabilities into a cloud-based platform to secure and mitigate risk across managed and unmanaged devices. By Denise Dubie Apr 24, 2024 3 mins 5G SASE SD-WAN analysis IBM drops $6.4B for HashiCorp and its multicloud automation technology HashiCorp's automation technology will fit into IBM’s Red Hat, watsonx, data security, IT automation and consulting businesses. By Michael Cooney Apr 24, 2024 3 mins Data Center Automation Network Management Software Cloud Computing PODCASTS VIDEOS RESOURCES EVENTS NEWSLETTERS Newsletter Promo Module Test Description for newsletter promo module. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe