The new year starts with a segue to last year's torrential cascade of new storage products aimed at entry-level customers. LSI Logic is announcing today the Engenio 1932, a 2U enclosure with 12 SAS (srial attached SCSI) drive bays that can be expanded up to 48 drives, connecting up to three extension modules via SAS. The 1932 is based on the same modular architecture of the previously announced 1331 and 1333 mod The new year starts with a segue to last year’s torrential cascade of new storage products aimed at entry-level customers. LSI Logic is announcing today the Engenio 1932, a 2U enclosure with 12 SAS (srial attached SCSI) drive bays that can be expanded up to 48 drives, connecting up to three extension modules via SAS.The 1932 is based on the same modular architecture of the previously announced 1331 and 1333 models, but it offers 4Gb FC front-end connectivity instead of SAS, making the device a likely candidate for departmental or entry-level storage networks. By contrast, the SAS front-end connectivity of the 133X models suggests deployment as host attached storage via direct server connection or using a SAS switch. The new enclosures also inherit from the 133x models the LSI Logic Simplicity management application and the ability to take snapshots In a concurrent announcement IBM is revealing two new enclosures, the System Storage DS3200, based on the Engenio 1333, and the DS3400, based on the 1932. These new enclosures exemplify the flexibility of SAS, with essentially the same technology, providing drive, front-end and back-end connectivity. It’s too soon to speculate, but that flexibility should prove more cost-effective and eventually outsell solutions based on old parallel SCSI.According to IBM the two enclosures should be available by the end of the month, starting at $4,500 for the DS3200 and $6,500 for the DS3400. Technology Industry