email article printer friendly

The Right Storage Solution
by Joel Semeniuk

Enterprises demand fast, reliable, consolidated data access, which has led to the development of two different storage architectures: Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Storage Area Network (SAN). Before you choose an enterprise storage architecture for your organization, you need to be fully aware of the differences between the two.

SAN and NAS have both been highly optimized to provide centralized data storage consolidation and efficient file access. SANs provide a dedicated and highly reliable storage network based on a Fibre Channel, which offers flexibility in distance and connectivity. NAS devices connect directly to the existing network and offer the ability to share the same file with multiple hosts and clients in a heterogeneous environment. In fact, you can consider NAS devices scaled down dedicated file servers for your network. In this respect, SANs are well suited to applications that require large amounts of dedicated and reliable storage such as databases and online transaction processing (OLTP). NAS is well suited for file serving applications.

The two architectures aren't necessarily mutually exclusive; they can be complementary solutions that can provide significant value to your data center storage needs. For example, NAS is the logical choice for network-shared directories and Web serving, while SAN is the logical choice for client/server and database applications. This demonstrates why you need to research both technologies carefully. New hybrid models, called NAS gateways, can provide you with the best of both worlds. For more information about NAS and SANs, read Tom Clark's article "Get the Most From Your Storage Investment," in this issue.

Not only do you have a choice of storage architectures to buy, you also have a rich choice of products and vendors who offer diverse feature sets. This comparison shows a narrow selection of the products currently available on the market, highlighting common features and characteristics.