Maxtor Corp. said Monday that it had entered the network-storage market with Maxtor Shared Storage, a product for the home and small office.
The Shared Storage product will be available in the U.S. in February from major retailers, the company said. The drives will ship worldwide in March. Suggested pricing will be $399.95 for a 300-GB model and $299.95 for the 200-GB version.
Networked storage has become more common as storage vendors look for ways to differentiate themselves, and multi-PC homes become more common. Maxtor said the drive would also be marketed at small businesses.
Each drive contains two USB ports, to connect up a printer or an another, additional drive. Each drive also contains a 10/100-Mbit Ethernet port. The drives ship with Maxtors “Drag and Sort” which can automatically organize files into folders based on file type.
Maxtor did not indicate that the drives will ship with automatic backup software, as some of its competitors include with their products.