Auspex Systems

Auspex Systems was a computer storage company founded in 1987 by Larry Boucher, who was previously CEO of Adaptec. It introduced the first network-attached storage (NAS) devices. One of the unique features of their systems was the ease with which volumes could be transparently mirrored and migrated between physical disks. They became a leading provider of enterprise storage in the mid-1990s but fell behind NetApp in the field. Early cabinet rack models held sets of 3-4gb disks the size of small shoeboxes. Their 4Front or NS2000 model, initially offered in 1999 as a stackable system, held drawers of disks and was plagued by Mylex RAID controller issues which contributed to their bankruptcy in June 2003. Their last product, the NSc3000, was the first multi-vendor SAN-NAS gateway and essentially kept the same NAS front-end but could connect via fibre-channel to any SAN disk array. When the company was liquidated in 2003, its patent portfolio was acquired by NetApp and its services business went to GlassHouse Technologies.