Just for networks: the new file servers. (high-powered file servers for local area networks)

JUST FOR NETWORKS: THE NEW FILE SERVERS

If your PC isn't connected to a local area network now, chances are it soon will be. By the end of 1992, according to Infonetics, a market research firm in Santa Clara, Calif., there will be 62 million PCs in use in this country, and 60% of them--some 37 million--will be connected to a LAN.

Until recently, networks, especially large ones, have been hampered by the limitations of existing file servers. General-purpose PCs, no matter how souped up, have trouble moving data rapidly across a network. And minicomputers and mainframes are too costly to dedicate solely to this task. But a new species of file server, a sort of hybrid PC with multiple processors and I/O (input/output) paths, promises top performance at a reasonable cost.

Overloading the network

The file server is the hub of a LAN. It stores data and a portion of applications, and it's responsible for transferring data around the network to …