The first NetApp box that IBM will rebadge will be NetApp’s FAS270, which will ship at the end of the month, as the IBM TotalStorage N3700. This device is one up from the bottom of NetApp’s FAS range, and it will be the smallest NetApp box that IBM will OEM.

It carries a list price of around $50,000 for a typical 1TB set up including software, and is aimed at SMBs with 1,000 or less employees or departmental use at bigger businesses.

IBM said it will ship larger re-badged NetApp boxes in the fourth quarter. NetApp’s describes all of its devices as unified storage, because they supports both block and file-level data access, but IBM argued that for several reasons none of the NetApp boxes will overlap with its other products.

The N3700/FAS270 will not compete with the DS300 iSCSI array that IBM launched last year and OEMs from Adaptec Inc, even though the N3700 is also an iSCSI device, because the two are priced so differently.

The DS300 is very much an entry-level device, carrying a $3,000 price tag for a base controller. The N3700 will not support Fibre Channel, and so will not compete with the other box that IBM OEMs from Adaptec, the DS400. IBM also said it is very happy with sales of the DS300 and DS400 (see separate story).

As for the bigger NetApp boxes coming late this year, IBM’s TotalStorage director Charlie Andrews said that they will not compete with IBM’s block level arrays such as its DS4000 formerly FASt series. This is because even though the bigger NetApp boxes will support block-level Fibre Channel, their forte is file level data access, not block level access.

There are a lot of customers who really need the characteristics of optimized support for Fibre Channel, and who don’t need something that blends file and block access in the same box. In those cases, for file level access they want something optimized for file level, and for block level they want something optimized for block level, Andrews said.

That means that IBM will not be using the NetApp boxes to replace the DS300 and DS400. Adaptec blamed its recent slumping revenue on reduced sales to its OEM partners, among other problems. But Andrews said IBM is sticking with Adaptec, at least for the foreseeable future

At this point we’re not looking to switch to NetApp in place of the DS300 and DS400. I don’t see a NetApp box fitting there- especially not for the DS400, he said. We’re not dissatisfied with the 300 and 400 sales, he said.