Storage vendor Adaptec has announced plans to acquire Snap Appliance, a maker of network-attached storage (NAS) appliances, in a transaction valued at approximately US$100 million.

Adaptec will pay $91 million in cash and $9 million in stock for the Snap Appliance. Snap Appliance will form the basis of a new storage system division within Adaptec, to be managed by Snap Appliance's chief executive, Eric Kelly.

The Snap Appliance division is expected to contribute more than $40 million in revenue to the company over the next year, an Adaptec spokeswoman said. Adaptec had a revenue of more than $450 million during its most recent fiscal year, which ended March 31.

The deal will give Adaptec "the ability to manage both block and file data," due to Snap Appliance's GuardianOS software platform, Adaptec said in a statement, referring to the software embedded in Snap's NAS appliances.

Over the last 18 months Adaptec has been expanding its product line into the externally attached storage market, the spokeswoman said. In March 2003, for example, Adaptec spent $30 million acquiring direct-attached server storage company Eurologic Systems, she said.

The Snap Appliance acquisition is expected to close by the end of the month, the spokeswoman said.

From Digit