KERNSAFE - iSCSI SAN Software and Storage Virtualization

KernSafe iSCSI SAN 8.0 Major Upgrades Released

KernSafe iSCSI SAN 8.0 is a major 20th anniversary release for the company's enterprise iSCSI SAN product family, delivering a reconstructed iSCSI core, improved performance and stability, modern web management, virtual tape support, and platform-specific RDMA acceleration.

May 26, 2026 - KernSafe Technologies today announced the release of KernSafe iSCSI SAN 8.0, a major upgrade for its enterprise iSCSI SAN and IP SAN product family. The release includes KernSafe iStorage Server 8.0 for Windows, KernSafe SuperSAN 8.0 for Linux, and KernSafe SuperSAN X 8.0 for macOS, giving organizations powerful software-based iSCSI SAN solutions across Windows, Linux, and Apple hardware platforms.

Released during KernSafe's 20th anniversary year, version 8.0 is not a routine product update. It is one of the most important upgrades in the history of KernSafe's iSCSI SAN platform. The release introduces a significantly reconstructed and redesigned product architecture, with major improvements in performance, usability, stability, and readiness for newer high-speed storage and networking hardware.

KernSafe iSCSI SAN software helps businesses transform existing systems into centrally managed network storage servers. Administrators can present disk images, physical disks, partitions, CD/DVD-ROMs, VHDs, tape devices, generic SCSI devices, and other storage resources as iSCSI targets to client machines. With version 8.0, KernSafe modernizes this foundation for today's virtualization, backup, high-availability, disaster recovery, and data center storage workloads.

Products Included in This Release

• KernSafe iStorage Server 8.0 for Windows: Enterprise iSCSI SAN and IP SAN software for Windows, including the full version 8.0 feature set and Windows RDMA support through iSER and RDMA-based replication.
• KernSafe SuperSAN 8.0 for Linux: Enterprise iSCSI and iSER target software for Linux, designed to transform x86, ARM-based, server, workstation, and embedded Linux systems into high-performance iSCSI/iSER SAN platforms.
• KernSafe SuperSAN X 8.0 for macOS: Enterprise iSCSI SAN software for macOS with the same core iSCSI SAN capabilities, storage virtualization features, high availability, replication, snapshots, VTL support, and web management platform. RDMA and iSER features are currently not supported on macOS.

Major Upgrades in KernSafe iSCSI SAN 8.0

• Reconstructed iSCSI core: The iSCSI SAN core has been significantly redesigned to improve stability, performance, and long-term reliability.
• Higher performance for modern hardware: Version 8.0 is designed to better utilize newer CPUs, faster disks, high-speed Ethernet, and modern storage infrastructure.
• Configurable workers: New worker configuration improves both single-connection and multi-connection performance, helping administrators tune iSCSI SAN deployments for different workloads.
• RDMA and iSER acceleration where available: iStorage Server 8.0 for Windows adds iSCSI RDMA support, including iSER and RDMA-based replication, while SuperSAN 8.0 for Linux provides iSCSI/iSER target capabilities. RDMA and iSER features are currently not available in SuperSAN X for macOS.
• Brand-new built-in web management platform: The new web management platform simplifies browser-based administration and remote operation across supported deployments.
• Virtual tape devices: Version 8.0 adds virtual tape device support for enterprise backup software integration.
• Improved Virtual Write: Virtual Write has been enhanced for better space efficiency and broader support for advanced iSCSI target types.
• Known issue resolution: Version 8.0 includes fixes for all known issues identified before this release.

A Full-Featured iSCSI SAN Platform

KernSafe iSCSI SAN 8.0 continues to provide a complete software-defined storage platform for organizations that need shared block storage without deploying dedicated SAN hardware. The product family supports standard and sparse image files, physical disks, partitions, VHD files, CD/DVD images, RAM disks, virtual CD/DVD-ROM devices, virtual CD/DVD-RW devices, virtual tape devices, generic SCSI device mapping, read and write caching, and multiple connections per iSCSI session.

For secure IP SAN environments, KernSafe provides CHAP authentication, Mutual CHAP authentication where supported, client IP address authentication, iSCSI target portal management, CHAP user management, and centralized administration. These capabilities help administrators build controlled, secure, and centrally managed iSCSI SAN services for business-critical workloads.

For enterprise storage protection and availability, KernSafe iSCSI SAN supports high availability, synchronous and asynchronous replication, failover, RAID-1 mirroring, snapshots, VHD snapshots, Microsoft VSS-compatible snapshot workflows, Continuous Data Protection (CDP), volume cloning, incremental backup, virtual tape device support, SCSI-2 Reserve/Release, SCSI-3 Persistent Reservations, Citrix XenServer, open-iscsi on Linux, and VMware environments. On Windows, iStorage Server also supports VMware VAAI features including ATS, ZERO, and XCOPY.

These capabilities make KernSafe iSCSI SAN 8.0 suitable for virtualization, clustering, centralized storage, backup infrastructure, disaster recovery, enterprise labs, software-defined storage deployments, and businesses that want to turn existing Windows, Linux, or macOS systems into shared iSCSI SAN storage servers.

Built for the Next Generation of Storage Infrastructure

Since KernSafe first introduced its iSCSI SAN software, enterprise storage environments have changed dramatically. Faster CPUs, NVMe storage, larger memory configurations, RDMA-capable networking, and more demanding virtualization workloads have raised expectations for software-based iSCSI SAN platforms. KernSafe iSCSI SAN 8.0 responds to those changes with deep architectural improvements that reduce bottlenecks, improve reliability, and prepare the product family for increasingly fast storage hardware.

"KernSafe iSCSI SAN 8.0 is not just a new version number," said a KernSafe spokesperson. "This release represents a major 20th anniversary upgrade across our iSCSI SAN product family. We redesigned and reconstructed important parts of the platform to make it faster, more stable, easier to manage, and better suited to the next generation of enterprise storage hardware."

Availability

KernSafe iStorage Server 8.0 for Windows, KernSafe SuperSAN 8.0 for Linux, and KernSafe SuperSAN X 8.0 for macOS are available now. Customers and evaluators can learn more about the products, review feature details, and download the latest versions from the KernSafe website.

iStorage Server for Windows: https://www.kernsafe.com/product/istorage-server.aspx
SuperSAN for Linux: https://www.kernsafe.com/product/iscsi-san-linux.aspx
SuperSAN X for macOS: https://www.kernsafe.com/product/iscsi-san-macos.aspx
iStorage Server features: https://www.kernsafe.com/product/istorage-server/features.aspx
iStorage Server version history: https://www.kernsafe.com/product/istorage-server/history.aspx

About KernSafe Technologies

KernSafe Technologies provides iSCSI SAN software, IP SAN solutions, storage virtualization, backup, replication, high availability, and storage management technologies for businesses and technical users. KernSafe products help organizations centralize storage, improve availability, and build flexible software-defined storage environments using existing infrastructure.

Contact: [email protected]