Comparing Storage Area Networks And Network Attached Storage
Often seen as competing technologies, Storage Area Networks (SANs) and Network Attached Storage (NAS) actually complement each other very well to provide access to different types of data. SANs are optimized for high-volume block-oriented data transfers while NAS is designed to provide data access at the file level.
Both technologies satisfy the need to remove direct storage-to-server connections to facilitate more flexible storage access. In addition, both SANs and NAS are based on open industry-standard network protocols — Fibre Channel for SANs and networking protocols such as TCP/IP for NAS. While SANs support a broad range of applications — including providing storage for NAS appliances — NAS storage is typically limited to applications that access data at the file level. Regardless of their differences, both SANs and NAS play vital roles in today's enterprises and provide many advantages over traditional server-attached storage implementations.