Quantum this week unveiled a backup appliance for $5,139 that offers smaller businesses 8TB of capacity and data deduplication capabilities typically reserved for its higher end hardware.

The Quantum NDX-8d network-attached storage (NAS) appliance can reduce storage requirements by up to 90%, according to the company.

Quantum also announced the RDX 8000 removable disk library, also with up to 8TB of capacity. For offsite disaster recovery protection, the NDX can replicate data to a second NDX appliance or move data offsite with the RDX 8000's removable hard drives.

The NDX-8d NAS appliance incorporates Quanum's Datastor Shield deduplication software, which typically offers a 20:1 deduplication ratio, meaning that the software typically removes 20 copies for every one original file. For example, if an email with an attachment is sent to a group of employees, each email the employee received will be backed up, creating multiple copies of the same data. Deduplication eliminates those copies and instead creates a pointer to the one original attachment for everyone to view.

"Customers tell us that data protection for small businesses and workgroups is overly complex," Rob Clark, senior vice president of Quantum's Disk and Tape Data Protection Group, said in a statement.

The NDX-8 comes in two models: the NDX-8 and NDX-8d (the d stands for deduplication). Both arrays are powered by an Intel Core i3 3.3Ghz processor and have 4GB of RAM, 8TB of capacity. That software provides agentless client backup, meaning that there is no software to install on the clients being protected.

The NDX-8 sells for $4,029 and the NDX-8d retails for $5,139.

The NDX line uses the Windows Storage Server operating system, allowing users to install Windows-based applications like Microsoft Exchange directly on the box. In addition, the NDX-8 and NDX-8d integrate seamlessly for data replication.

The RDX 8000 Removable Disk Library comes with up to eight removable disk-drive slots, enabling users to take data offsite to an archive. The cartridges comes in capacities ranging from 160GB to 1TB. In 2012, a 1.5TB RDX cartridge is expected to ship, which will increase the maximum capacity of the RDX 8000 by 50% to 12TB.

The RDX 8000 is available with Quantum Datastor Shield deduplication software. Compared to tape or non-deduplicated disk, it allows users to create approximately two-thirds fewer cartridges, Quantum said.

The RDX 8000 with data deduplication is $4,999, and $3,889 without it. NDX appliances come in either tower or 1U rack configurations, and both product lines are available from Quantum's worldwide resellers and distribution channels.

Lucas Mearian covers storage, disaster recovery and business continuity, financial services infrastructure and health care IT for Computerworld. Follow Lucas on Twitter at @lucasmearian or subscribe to Lucas's RSS feed . His e-mail address is lmearian@computerworld.com.