Hardware maker Dell announced two new storage products: a disk-based deduplication appliance that’s the first of its kind offered by the company, and version 6.0 of Compellent Storage Center.

The  DR4000  backup appliance used data compression tech from the now Dell-owned Ocarina to achieve a data reduction ratio of up to 15:1. The product is available in three different versions, packing 2.7TB, 5.4TB or 9TB, and can store up to 100 terabytes worth of company data in a U2 array. It’s designed for small to medium businesses and will be available within a month at “competitive pricing,” according to Bob Fine, the head of marketing for Dell Compellent.

“The appliance uses inline deduplication and compression features to reduce data during backups of both physical and virtual servers. The DR4000 is designed to work as a staging area for data images, allowing access to backed up data in seconds.”

The new Compellent Storage Center features tighter VMware integration, with support for Site Recovery Manager 5 and Storage Replication Adapter which offers automated failback. Dell’s software uses the Compellent–developed Fluid Data data migration technology to copy data from a VM to a storage array and assign storage tiers based on importance. V6 can assign tasks to Compellent SANs to enable quick deployment of virtual machines and achieve higher IT resource usage.

Storage is one of the areas Dell is likely looking at for potential acquisition targets. CEO Michael Dell did not disclose that during a keynote where he said his company will become a “serial acquirer” in the near future, but we believe that this is the most probable route the manufacturer will be taking. Dell also has plans in the networking space, based on an employee’s report of supposed ambitions to snatch market share away from Cisco.