Free iSCSI Target Software by StarWind

StarWind Software, Inc., in storage virtualization and iSCSI storage software, announced a one of a kind free offering of its iSCSI Target software that converts any Windows server into a fully-functional shared storage appliance.

This new free version permits an unlimited number of connections and a very large capacity of 2TB. The new features have been added due to popular demand. With unlimited connections and the significant increase in capacity of the software, StarWind is the only company in the storage virtualization industry to give away a product that others charge for. Since 2003, StarWind iSCSI Target has been used by thousands of IT professionals for high availability (HA) environments with server clusters and server virtualization, and this new free version will now allow everyone to experience the benefits of storage virtualization without restrictions that typically limit other Free or evaluation products.

StarWind ISCSI Target Free version installs on any standard 64-bit or 32-bit Windows server and converts it into a fully-functional and blazingly fast SAN, offering shared storage to any applications on the network. This Free version supports virtual environments such as VMware ESX or VMware ESXi or Microsoft Hyper-V and can even run inside an individual VM. The new StarWind Free is built on the trusted, proven and mature technology of the fourth generation StarWind product. One of the key features of the StarWind iSCSI Target is that it supports Server Cluster environments with VMware, Hyper-V, Microsoft SQL Server, Exchange and other server solutions.

"We previously had a limited free product and discovered that IT professionals would really appreciate if we pulled out the limits on this product and expanded it to 2 terabyte capacity while still allowing multiple connections. All other companies sell this product but we wanted to make it accessible to more people to experience the significant benefits of storage virtualization," said Zorian Rotenberg, president and CEO, StarWind Software. "Like server virtualization, storage virtualization is becoming ubiquitous and we wanted to give any size company a chance to experience this technology and help accelerate progress towards 100% virtualization. When servers and storage are both virtualized, the advantages are much greater in improving application and data availability."

Key Features of StarWind Free Version include:

• Large 2 TB capacity
• Support for Server Clusters with VMware ESX and ESXi and Microsoft Hyper-V
• Unlimited number of supported concurrent iSCSI connections
• Compression, Encryption and CHAP authentication
• iSCSI RAM disk for network performance tuning
• Intuitive GUI, easy to install and manage

The Free Version of StarWind iSCSI Target takes only a few minutes to download and install and easily configures as shared storage for Windows server clusters.