What is the difference between nas and san storage

However, enterprise IT budgets are not infinite, and organizations need to optimize their storage expenditures to suit their priority requirements. This article will help you do that by defining NAS vs SAN, calling out their distinctions, and presenting usage cases for both architectures. Both network-attached storage NAS and storage area network SAN were developed to solve the problem of making stored data available to a lot of users at once. A NAS is a single storage device that serves files over Ethernet and is relatively inexpensive and easy to set up, while a SAN is a tightly coupled network of multiple devices that work with block-based data and is more expensive and complex to set up and manage.

A NAS is a computer connected to a network that provides file-based data storage services to other devices on the network. The primary strength of NAS is how simple it is to set up and deploy. NAS volumes appear to the user as network mounted volume. The files to be served are typically contained on one or more storage drives, often arranged into logical, redundant storage containers or RAID.

Although a NAS is usually not designed to be a general-purpose server, NAS vendors and third parties are increasingly offering other software to provide server-like functionality on a NAS. NAS devices offer an easy way for multiple users in diverse locations to access data, which is valuable when uses are collaborating on projects or sharing information.

NAS provides good access controls and security to support collaboration, while also enabling someone who is not an IT professional to administer and manage access to the data. It also offers good fundamental data security through the use of redundant data structures — often RAID — and automatic backup services to local devices and to the cloud. The weaknesses of a NAS are related to scale and performance. As more users need access, the server might not be able to keep up and could require the addition of more server horsepower.

The other weakness is related to the nature of Ethernet itself. By design, Ethernet transfers data from one place to another via packets, dividing the source into a number of segments and sending them along to their destination.

Any of those packets could be delayed, or sent out of order, and might not be available to the user until all of the packets arrive and are put back in order.

Any latency slow or retried connections is usually not noticed by users for small files, but can be a major problem in demanding environments such as video production, where files are extremely large and latency of more than a few milliseconds can disrupt production steps such as rendering.

SAN is a dedicated high-performance network for consolidated block-level storage. The network interconnects storage devices, switches, and hosts. Sign In Register. Sign Out Sign In Register. Latest Insider. Check out the latest Insider stories here. More from the IDG Network.

What is NAS network-attached storage and how does it work? Is Fibre Channel dead? High performance can be achieved using the network and software optimization, commonly slower. Grants read and write access for multiple users using an external manager. Difference between storage area network and network attached storage is obvious: whereas NAS is an endpoint device, SAN is a network of devices that act as one.

Network area storage device is far simpler and cheaper to buy and maintain. Setting up a storage area network requires knowledge, practice and continuous maintenance.

It also costs a lot to build one. If you need storage for backup or data sharing within small teams - you are better off with a NAS.

Blog Articles. Every week we deliver quality content about cloud storage, backups and security. Leave your email to get weekly and monthly digests. The server partitions and formats those blocks—typically with a file system—so that it can store data on the LUN just as it would on local disk storage. SANs make up about two-thirds of the total networked storage market.

They are designed to remove single points of failure, making SANs highly available and resilient. A well-designed SAN can easily withstand multiple component or device failures. Storage area networks are frequently deployed in support of business-critical, performance-sensitive applications such as:. Both SAN and network-attached storage NAS are methods of managing storage centrally and sharing that storage with multiple hosts servers. NetApp works closely with Brocade to deliver innovative storage networking solutions that help reduce complexity and cost while enabling maximum performance with consistent low latency to increase business agility.