Adaptec just told us about its new DuraStor family of entry-level external storage subsystems, which the company says are targeted at mid-sized companies with scalable storage requirements. DuraStor is managed and configured by Storage Manager Pro software and backed with a service and support program. The first product in the DuraStor family is a 3U SCSI external RAID subsystem, called the Adaptec DuraStor 6220SS. It combines a 1U RAID appliance and a 2U storage enclosure with 12 drive bays. The DuraStor storage subsystem includes a standard, one-year, on-site service plan plus a three-year limited warranty. Upgraded, three-year service programs are also available. Adaptec's DuraStor 6220SS features the DuraStor 6200SR RAID appliance and DuraStor 312R storage drive enclosure. The DuraStor 6200SR RAID appliance supports dual controllers and includes an Operator Control Panel (OCP) for configuration. The DuraStor 312R storage enclosure supports up to 12 one" SCSI drives. The storage enclosure can also be purchased separately and used for adding external storage to servers with internal host-based PCI RAID cards. The appliance and storage enclosure come with redundant, hot-swappable power supplies and cooling fans. Two additional storage enclosures can be added to the subsystem for a total of 36 drives, giving you around 2.7 teraBytes of storage in a 7U rackspace. Data management is provided by Adaptec's Storage Manager Pro for the Windows NT/2000 along with Adaptec Disk Array Administrator for UNIX. The DuraStor 6220SS SCSI external RAID subsystem should see the light of day in the United States in about a month at an MSRP that starts at $7,999. Priced separately, the DuraStor 312R storage enclosure is $3,499. A Fibre Channel subsystem will ship in November of this year.