Small businesses are starting to see some of the high-end, open source storage applications that used to be reserved for large organizations.

OnStor recently introduced two new Pantera storage appliances that leverage such goodies as the Zettabyte File System (ZFS) developed by Sun Microsystems for its Solaris operating system. The system allows organizations to boost storage capacities into the multiple terabyte range, and provides a range of file system and volume management tools, along with snapshot capability, integrity checks and automated repair functions.

ZFS is available on the LS2130 and LS2150 models, allowing both devices to support hybrid storage pools consisting of SAS, SATA and Flash drives the multi-tiered operations. The devices can also integrate iSCSI and NAS functions, allowing organizations to lower costs by merging both networks.

Other key features include advanced RAID management, differential replication for disaster recovery operations, thin provisioning and native compression.

Pricing starts at about $36,000 for a 15 TB configuration.